Azula's Search
by halftruthsandhyperbole
Summary: Balance has been restored. Aang succeeded in saving the world, and Zuko has replaced his father as Fire Lord. But Ursa, Zuko's mother, is still missing. Zuko cannot abandon the throne in search of her. It is decided (reluctantly by some) that Azula with Mai, Ty Lee, and Suki will search for her. Will Azula betray them, or does she truly deserve a second chance? Updates Friday
1. Aftermath

Chained as she was to the grate, Azula could hardly move. Bound by her wrists, she could not bend. She roared, like the daughter of the fire lord, and it could not be called a scream because princesses like her did not scream, they did not sob, they did not cry.

Blue fire scorched her lips until the comet disappeared beyond the horizon, following the path her father had sailed as he left her behind.

Then there was nothing but the chains chafing her wrists and her barren, parched mouth. Her lip was split down the middle from the dry heat as she stretched them tight around her bared teeth.

Her body was an empty bag of flesh, and the grate to which she was chained dug into her knees like blunt teeth worrying a dried up, hollow bone.

The sound of running water scraped against her ears.

Her wet hair ran rivulets down her back. Her heavy uniform stuck to her skin.

When footsteps approached, she tried to burn the sound of them away, to scorch the threatening tread of boots, to teach them a lesson, but her mouth was empty, and too small for her tongue.

Nothing escaped her lips but a ragged gasp, which she hid behind the crooked curtain of her hair, because she could not bend.

Just like when Ty Lee had betrayed her, had chosen Mai over her, had taken her bending away. But the fire had come back, and it would come back again—it had to.

Her body could not betray and abandon her too.

Her fingers twitched against the chain as Mai and Ty Lee circled in her thoughts, like hovering vultures. She had put them in prison so she would never have to see their faces again, yet it seemed she saw them more than ever, lingering in the shadows of her vision, in her dreams, in every waking moment.

Zuko crouched too close for her to turn her eyes away. He offered her water in a humble cup made of clay. Her scar marred his chest. Their father's scar marred his face and overshadowed his mother's eyes. Soon, he would bear his father's crown, the crown that had almost been hers.

His father's son, and his mother's boy.

Azula flushed from shame, from embarrassment that anyone (but especially him) should see her in this way, on her knees, defeated by some water tribe peasant. Her hair, unbound, became caught in the chapped parting of her lips as a hot wind blew.

"Come on, Azula," Zuko said.

She craned her body away, so that the chains bit into her wrists and hands, so that she could not see his offer of water.

He had everything. He had the kingdom. The throne. He'd even found his pathetic honor.

He had everything but this one thing he asked of her—that she drink from his hand like a child. Of course she would never give him that satisfaction.

Who did he think she was?

Sighing, he set the water aside, and reached towards her, unlooping the chains that bound her to the grate, setting her free. It was a mistake. She would show him.

Azula lashed out with a loosely formed fist, her hands too tired and numb, already pricking as the blood returned to it, and he caught her wrist and held her elbow as he breathed words she didn't understand into her ear.

Then he let her go, turning his back on her to join Katara—the one who had defeated her, doused her fire with water, leaving her with nothing, just as the comet had left her with nothing, and her father too.

She tried to spit after his retreating body but her throat was too dry. Racking coughs shook her shoulders, and her fingertips scrabbled at the courtyard, scorched and burned from their Agni Kai, as if she could find whatever they had taken and stripped from her there in the ruins of her old life.

Li and Lo came for her. She was sure she had banished one of them, but here they were, guiding her like she was three. She pushed their frail hands away, and they caught her fingers, kissed her scraped knuckles with their withering lips.

They wiped her face with their rags and the cloth came back damp and grey with soot. "Your father's back," they told her.

Would Father burn her for failing to keep the kingdom safe while he was away, or would he send her somewhere where he would never see her face again? Would he do both, like he had done to Zuko? She would not scream, whatever he chose. She would not cower. She would not beg—as Zuko had.

"He doesn't want to see you," they said.

So it would be exile then. Would she have her own ship? Would Uncle come with his sage words, or would it be Li and Lo with their shaking, synchronized voices? What task would he give to her to prove herself once more? To regain her lost honor?

She could do it. She had brought Ba Sing Se low, and it could be done again and again until it was nothing but ash. She could turn the Earth Kingdom into a charcoal scar, and she could boil the oceans of the Water Kingdom until they wandered in deserts.

Pain doubled in her side, and she staggered into Li (or Lo). They did not shy away from her, so she pushed harder.

They were stronger than they looked—or had she grown weaker?

She could do anything—but keep the kingdom safe from her traitor brother as he rose prouder and stronger than she had ever seen him stand before.

She could kill the usurper—as her grandfather had once ordered long ago.

She would accept the banishment as punishment for her crime, as his mother had. After all, she was no stranger to these things as Zuko was, since his mother did not deem fit to share all the things they had done.

When she saw her father, she would offer this gift to him. He would not even need ask it of her.

She knew what he wanted in ways that Zuko never could.

"Princess Azula, come," Li and Lo said.

She let them push her back into the grand empty halls of the palace, so quiet after she had banished her people with their harsh, grating words carving the skin from her ears. She let them pull her into her room, and they locked the door behind her.

"Princess Azula, hold out your arms." She did because she knew this routine as they removed her clothes—it was familiar to her. They drew a bath for her, hot water pouring from the facets shaped like dragon maws.

If the dragons yet lived, she would kill one for her father, bestowing its head at his feet.

Grandfather should have asked for the head of the one that Uncle supposedly killed.

Li and Lo helped her into the bath, and she drew up her legs against her bare chest because the water burned, it was so hot. She let her cheek rest in the cradle of her knees as Li and Lo sluiced water over her hair, gold combs inlaid with jade untangling the knots that had been made by the wind and her thrashing against the chains.

She closed her eyes against the pull and scrape of the comb. It wasn't as good as a royal hair combing, but it was familiar.

They hummed under their breath something that Azula had not heard since she was a child. She clutched her knees with her fists as they murmured the words, resenting them.

Goosebumps rose along her arms as the water chilled. She tried to make the water warmer, but it only got colder and colder until she could no longer hide her shivering. Li and Lo tugged her to her feet, dried her, and guided her to the wide bed.

"Sleep now," they told her.

Azula looked over her shoulder at the shattered mirror. So many eyes and mouths stared back at her.

Were they hers—or did another peer back over her shoulder?

Of course they were hers. There was no trace of her mother in her.

She was her father's daughter, after all, as everyone did say.

Were those her father's eyes, her father's sneer in her curled lip, or was it Zuko's triumph over her that heated her cheeks red, that shamed and embarrassed her?

Azula turned away, her finger pointing at the shattered glass, and Li or Lo covered the mirror with a fine cloth made of red silk.

Their old hands tucked her into bed, pulled the covers to her chin like she was three so she pushed them away. Before they took their leave of her, they blew out the lamps, leaving thin ribbons of smoke behind them.

She fell into an uneasy sleep—she twisted and turned, woke with the covers wet and damp against her knees and her forehead slippery with sweat.

She sat up, fist over her heart to trap its fluttering, panicking beat. Someone had taken away her mirror and swept the shards away. Someone had put a tall glass of water beside her bed, and she took it in both hands, swallowing it down so quickly she coughed—but her thirst was not quenched.

She slid from the bed, wiping her mouth with her wrist, and forced her breath to steady. She guided her breath through her stomach, then struck out with her palm.

Nothing.

It was one of the simplest steps, the first ones she had learned as a young girl when Azulon yet lived.

She tried again, and there was nothing still.

Sweat ran down the stiff channel of her spine under the rigid rise of her shoulders. Hair caught in her mouth as her lips opened, panting from effort. Fine shivers shook her arms, ruining her form.

She heard her father's voice: do it again.

So she did.

Not even a puff of smoke.

If almost wasn't good enough—then what were these pitiful demonstrations? His voice whispered in her ear, and she shook the sleep and fatigue from her limbs. Her fingers brushed against each other like dry parchment, waiting for a spark, as she tried again.

Do it again. She heard his voice as if she was a child once more, coming to her from so many years ago.

She failed.

Again—Azula bashed her head against the wall of her chamber—again—never stopping even when pain sparked behind her eyes—again.

Sweat soaked her robe.

Do it again—harder, harder, harder until her pain burned blue and her head dizzied.

Li and Lo tried to pull her away, but she pushed them off.

Do it again, Ozai said, because almost isn't good enough.

Her skull ached.

Li and Lo must have fetched her brother with his scarred face and scarred chest because he pulled her from the wall and forced her to sit on the bed. She tried to scratch him, but he wrestled her away, and then she realized, as her nails raked her own arms, that someone had clipped her claws—they were just blunt nubs now—useless.

When had they done it?

Had there been no fight in her?

Her lungs cried for air.

Zuko was shouting at her. It was normal for siblings to yell at each other. There would have been silence if she had been an only child. She remembered the silence that had descended upon the court when Father had banished him. No more shouting, no more crying, no more anything but him and his promises.

"What is the matter with you?" He paused for breath, sparing a moment to look behind him at the small crowd that had gathered. The Avatar was there—and he was also small, just a boy really. Zuko's new friends and allies were there—the ones he had chosen over family.

Once she hadn't been so sure that he would choose her, not when he had been playing house with his uncle—and then he had abandoned her again in the dead of night when they had both secured their seats at their father's side, when they'd both had everything that they had ever wanted.

What was it that Mai had told her? That she had—miscalculated? That she didn't know people as well as she thought she did?

Her lip twisted against her teeth and she clenched her robe in her fists as she thought she saw, at the very back, a fringe of shiny black hair and a too-long braid.

Azula forced herself to be calm, to hide her clawed fists safely away inside her sleeves. Father would be so embarrassed if he saw her like this—if their enemies had seen her like this. There had been a time when she had been cornered by her traitors and her enemies—and she had escaped.

"Prince Zuko," Li and Lo chorused together. "Princess Azula has lost her bending."

Azula clawed at her skin. She would have words with them—how dare they speak about her in that way. But her tongue refused to move.

She closed her eyes.

"Has she spoken a word?" Zuko asked.

"No, she hasn't." One of them patted her shoulder, and she jerked away. "It's just like the time when you were banished, Lord Zuko. She didn't speak for days."

The other nodded wisely. "For months."

They were lying. She tried to recall the things she had said, the orders she had issued but she could remember nothing except the blue fire blossoming from her palms, scorching the gardens, sending the turtle-ducks scuttling for the shelter of the pond—as if she couldn't have evaporated it from the garden had she chosen to do so.

"I thought that'd be the happiest day of her life," Zuko said.

It had been. She had been the only child, the only one who mattered. And the one time he had called for her, it was three years later to send her after Zuko, to bring him home.

"She's out of balance." That was the Avatar.

Whatever that meant. She had no use for Avatar talk.

"I was afraid you'd have to—" Zuko didn't finish, and an awkward silence fell upon the crowd. She almost wanted to ask what Zuko was afraid of but then realized she didn't care.

"She's just a kid though," the Avatar said. She leaned away when he leaned down that he might peer up at her from behind her veil of hair. "I mean, she's only a little older than me."

"She's dangerous." It was the boy. The one with the boomerang. "Remind me again why she's still here?"

Apparently nobody wanted her to hear Zuko's answer to that as he and the Avatar helped herd everyone out of the room until it was as if they had never been.

She faltered for a moment, and looked to the mirror where she had seen her mother though she had never been there physically. It was here that her mother had told her—Azula dug her fingers into the meat of her thigh to stop the memory of her mother with her long, beautiful the hair, the words she had spoken in her gentle voice, as if she had understood Azula, as if she hadn't thought her a monster—

"Azula?"

It was Zuko. He hadn't left with the others. Instead, he sat beside her so that the bed dipped under his weight. "Do you even know what's happened? Or are you too crazy?"

She glared at him under the crooked fringe of her hair. "I'm not crazy." The words came slow and sullen. They left her exhausted, and she hoped that Zuko would keep his mouth shut but very stupid people were always talking. She tried to steady her breath, to find it in her stomach, but it fluttered and flapped like the pathetic moths who flew too close to the candle flames and died, burning.

Zuko dipped his head to try and meet her eye. "Not even a Zuzu, huh?"

She bared her teeth, and Zuko flinched away, his eyes fixed on the wall in front of them. "The others don't think I should trust you. They think this—" he shrugged – "docility is a game that you're playing. A trick. One of your lies, because you always lie, Azula, you always do." He hesitated for a moment, and Azula thought he was going to ask her if it was—but then he must have realized how stupid a question that would be as he clicked his mouth shut. His throat moved up and down as he swallowed.

Azula raised her arms so that the sleeves fell to her elbow. The cool air pricked her skin. "You defeated me. I know when I've been defeated." She settled deeper into the bed, clutching one of the pillows to her stomach. "Just remember that it wasn't you, Zuzu."

"It was Katara." He smiled at her name.

Azula threw the pillow at him, and it smacked him in the face, his reflexes too dulled with thoughts of her to catch it. He didn't get it. Nobody understood. It wasn't Katara who had defeated her—it had been—her not being good enough. It had been her bending leaving her when she had needed it the most. It had been her father leaving her to face Zuko and Katara by herself. It had been her still not being enough.

"So we're back to not talking again. Okay." Zuko took a breath. "The Avatar took Father's bending away. He's in a cell now, which is why he hasn't come to see you."

Why would he even want to see her when she had so transparently failed to keep the Fire Nation safe in his absence? Zuko didn't know anything at all.

But she could make it up to her father—she could rectify her mistakes. She raised her palm, found her breath, and—

For the first time, Zuko looked at her. His eyes traced the shape of her face, found the line of her hand and followed it to her heart. "Have you considered that your bending would come back if you weren't trying to kill me all the time?"

He raised his hand to hers, so that their fingers almost touched at their tips. His hand was larger than hers—it had always been, but it hadn't meant anything. She'd always bested him where it mattered.

Calluses hardened his palm where he wielded his swords. Her hand was smooth, the skin soft and new. Only yesterday the servants had scrubbed the dead skin from her, made her smell new and clean.

Their hands were touching now—palm to palm, fingers to fingers, though his were bent at the knuckles so that their tips connected. He pressed a rhythm into her skin, something they had done when they listened to the players on Ember Island, when their mother and father had been with them, before the memories turned depressing.

She snatched her hand away, and scuttled back away from him so that she was pressed against the headboard, her legs drawn to her chest.

"I know you think that he's worth all this," Zuko said. "He's our father after all. But he's not." He looked at her, his eyes almost pleading. "He's turned us against each other. He's bullied me. He's bullied you." He touched his scar. "He may not have put a hand on you, but he's hurt you, Azula. He's hurt us both."

Her belly burned with hot shame.

Under his tunic, she saw the burn he had taken for the water bender, for Katara. It looked as if it were older than something he had received only yesterday.

Someone was always there for him.

"Sometimes, I forget that you're younger than me." His words were soft, and she had to strain to hear him. "We hadn't seen each other in years—and then you came, tricking me to come to a cell. Then you're—no, we—are taking Ba Sing Se. You said that you needed me." He looked at her as if this should mean something.

"Azula always lies," she said. "I'm a very good liar."

"You are. I think that's one of the reasons why it just made more sense for you to be the older child, the leader. I think that's what everybody wanted. You may have been born lucky, but you were still born second. Maybe that's why you had to be first because you weren't in the only way that mattered. And if I'm dead—then it doesn't matter anymore, right? You were the firebending prodigy—the only whose fire was ever blue. And maybe, we should have known then that something was wrong. And now you can't bend at all—which is a relief, to be honest, because I was going to ask Aang to take your bending away." Zuko shifted so that he was a little closer to her. "If there's one thing I've learned in my exile—the one that Father punished me with and the one I inflicted on myself—"

"—you broke Mai's heart. She was insufferable for days. Gloomy and grey and—" and still choosing Zuko over her.

He looked abashed. "I just meant to say that I learned that everybody deserves a second chance." He rose from the bed and turned to go. But he paused, looking back at her over his shoulder. "Even you, Azula. Don't waste it, please."

Azula covered her mouth, stomach roiling as she fell off the bed, landing hard enough to bruise. She rubbed them angrily, cursing her slow limbs, her useless body.

It was then that Li and Lo opened the door, their arms filled with baskets. They took away the ceremonial daggers and swords that hung on her walls, the scissors she had used to cut her hair, her perfect, beautiful hair, and packed them neatly in the baskets they then took away.

They had scooped her room hollow. It was impossible to even tell that it had once been the room of a princess, much less Princess Azula.

They told her it was not for forever, that the Fire Lord only feared that she would hurt herself.

But they lied.

She knew a prison when she saw one.

Her brother was putting her in her place just as neatly as Li and Lo had taken her things away.

She paced the room until the sun disappeared into darkness. She flexed her fingers. Before, the night had reminded her that her bending was weaker now, that she was at the mercy of the sky, of time, of things that she could not touch or even reach because firebenders rose with the sun.

She had been without bending during the eclipse, but she knew it was the moon's doing—not her own body's doing. With the threat of the eclipse came the promise of the comet.

No promise waited for her now—only the four walls of her room and a closed door and falling under her brother's shadow.

When her pacing brought her to the door, she reached out, and turned the knob. It wasn't locked, like she had been expecting it to be. She donned her robe, pulled the hood low over her face, and slipped into the same slippers she had worn on Ember Island. It was easy to sneak out, to make no noise on the lush carpets that lined the palace hallways.

It would have been easy to dismiss her as a shadow if any had seen her, but the palace was deserted, its usual occupants too busy sleeping off the lively celebration for the new Fire Lord, sleeping off the drink they had swallowed as if they did not realize the depths of their own treachery, their own betrayal. Outside, the remnants of ribbons clung to the trees. The lingering smell of hot fire flakes seared the air. The streets were sticky with crushed traces of mangoes.

They had thrown all of this for him, and the ceremony hadn't even taken place yet.

She kicked at a pebble and it skittered across the courtyard.

They would learn, they would pay, once she was in a position to teach them.

There had been no celebration for Azula. There had been no one. No crowd. No dignitaries from the other kingdoms. No celebration. No laughter.

It had been meaningless, until Zuko had showed up to stop her and steal the Nation from her.

She twisted the robe tighter around her, quickening her pace as she approached the prison that had once contained their treacherous Uncle. She stared up and up its high tower. Of course, Father would be there. Of course he would. And when she found him, her bending would come back, and she would be able to burn through the lock, and she would free him, and then they would burn Zuko's nation and his people to the ground.

She would regain what she had lost, what was hers.

This had been her father's gift to her, and what had he ever given Zuko but his scorn and a scar?

Azula plucked a torch from the wall, holding her palm before the flame. It warmed her, and it burned her. It was as familiar as her name on her lips, and she closed her eyes, breathing in the flickering smoke as deep as she could before coughing it back up.

She climbed the winding stairs until she reached the very top because Zuko would have wanted to put their father there to discourage ill-advised rescue attempts.

As if a high room in a tall tower could stop her when she had brought low the walls of Ba Sing Se.

Her father sat caged in a cell, huddled in a grey cloak that had once been red. Azula's skin prickled in goosebumps from the chill, and she shivered.

She fell to her knees before the cell, jiggling the lock so it clanked against the bars. Her father stirred at the sound, his cloak falling so that she could see his bare shoulders.

"Azula," he said. His voice was cracked and hoarse as if he had not used it for an age. "Is that you?"

She raised her finger to her lips—just because she had slipped past the guards didn't mean they weren't listening. Perhaps they were sleepy with generous cups of rice wines, perhaps they weren't. She held the iron lock in her hand, her thumbs circling its gaping hole.

The blind Earth Bender probably could have handled this no problem. Not even the Dai Li had been able to bend metal. A flash of irritation seared through her.

Why hadn't they learned? What if she had need of a metal bender, as she did now?

She remembered that she had banished them, dismissed them from her service.

A shadow fell over her, and she glanced up at her father, at the towering length of him. "Didn't you bring the key?" he said. "Didn't you take it from your brother?"

Her eyes flickered downward, her mouth curling into a snarl. Zuko had been in her room that very day, and she had not seen it on his person, so had not thought to take it from him.

How could she be so thoughtless?

But it didn't matter. She would melt the locks with the fire of her rage. Nothing burned hotter than a blue fire—she had proven it time and again.

Pressing her palm over the lock, she steadied her breath and—

A cold breeze shook her, and her father's had, bitter laugh echoed it.

"What, did they take your bending too? That would explain much."

She braced herself, lips twisting around her teeth, and tried again.

He kneeled in front of her, reached for her through the bars that he might cup her cheeks in his hands like he hadn't done since she was small. His hands were cold but warmth flushed her skin, and she closed her eyes as she leaned into him. "Azula," he whispered. "Daughter. What has become of you?"

She curled her hands around his wrists.

"Did the Avatar take your bending too?" he asked again.

She shook her head, the ragged edge of her hair brushing against their skins.

"Answer me, Azula," her father said. He tightened his grip around her until his fingers dug into the base of her scalp, until he pulled uncomfortably at her hair.

He was going to ruin it. Everybody would be so upset if he ruined her hair. She needed to answer him before he pulled any harder. Azula opened her mouth, her tongue scraping the syllable somewhere from her scorch-burned throat. "No."

"Then what happened?" His thumb found the corner of her jaw, that place that leaned into the soft yield of her throat.

Her hands scrabbled for purchase around his wrists. "I don't know. The comet—" words faltered in her mouth. The comet had filled her with energy, crackling, burning, consuming energy that split from her fingertips and cracked air with light and thunder, that left her a smoking, hollow place.

"You must have been glorious. You, the firebending prodigy, powered by the comet." He pressed his face against the bars, and they were so close that Azula could feel his breath fall against her face. "So how is it that Zuko was able to defeat you?"

She clung to his wrists even tighter as it became more difficult to breathe. "I was betrayed," she whispered. She had cheated first, technically, but that wasn't the moment of betrayal. She couldn't name the exact moment, but she knew she had been betrayed—even before Mai had chosen Zuko over her. Her friends had betrayed her. Her family had betrayed her. And now her body betrayed her too.

"I trusted you, Azula, with the heart of empire, and you let it go. You failed me." He opened his hands so that her head dropped, her neck craned backwards. Air and blood rushed through her until she was dizzy. She clung to his wrists even tighter as she fought to find her balance, but he jerked his hands back hard, slamming her fingers against the bars. She was forced to let him go. As she rubbed the pain from the bones, her knees shuffled forwards so that she was pressed more closely against the bars even as her father edged away from her, his arms still folded across his chest, his brows overshadowing his eyes, his mouth a gaping sneer.

"And now you've come to me with what? With the empty gesture that you would save me if you could, but only if you had not lost your Dai Li friends, had not lost your nation's throne, had not lost your status as the Fire Lord I was so generous to bestow upon you, had not lost to your brother who was never as talented or clever as you—had you not lost your bending though no one stole it from you as mine was stolen."

"Father—" Azula forced the words out. "Please." Zuko's parting words circled in her ears. "Please give me a second chance. I will not fail you again. I have always made you proud, doing whatever you've asked of me."

"You have failed me countless times. You failed to return your brother before he escaped to Ba Sing Se. You failed to properly kill the Avatar—oh yes, I'm aware that you gave Zuko the credit so that it would be his own undoing instead of yours. But it is I that pay the price of your failure. He slid down the wall of his tiny cell and turned his face away from her. "You were my greatest hope, Azula. You were supposed to be everyone that Zuko was not." He raised his hand. "I don't want to see your face again."

"—you can't—" Azula breathed, her arm snaking through the bars as she reached for her father. "You can't treat me like that, like—" Those desperate words sounded so familiar in her ears. Hate rose through her and she hid her face behind her hair because Zuko had never lost his bending, even when he wandered lost in the Earth Kingdom. He had just refused to use it.

She should have accepted his challenge to Agni Kai then. When he was eager and stupid and too confident.

"Compose yourself, Azula." As he spoke, her returned to her, his strong hands reaching through the bars to hold her, to rest on her shoulders as he had once depended on her to fulfill the jobs he could entrust to no other. "Return when you have regained your bending and can free me from this place."

She bowed low. "Yes, father."

Then he turned away from her completely, hiding himself in his faded robes.

Zuko was waiting for her when she reached the bottom of the tower. "What?" she snarled. "He's my father too."

"Some people would question your loyalties," he said, smiling at her as if they shared a joke. She said nothing, but quickly outpaced him as she returned to her own rooms, but he was never far behind her.


	2. Interlude: In Loving Memory

Iroh returned from the walls of Ba Sing Se wearing white. As crown prince of the Fire Nation, he was aware that he had failed his father in capturing the great Earth Kingdom city. He had shamed his father, and his grandfather.

He would never share a cup of jasmine tea with Lu Ten again.

He walked with his head hung in grief. Thick tears slid down cheeks. He did not see the path before him or the greeny around him. He did not pause to appreciate the fragrance of the blooming fruit trees, nor did he investigate the shrieking sounds of children laughing.

Azulon would be angry. He would ask, why had Iroh failed? Had he not placed such great hope in his son, his firstborn, to bring such honor and glory to the Fire Nation?

Had not Lu Ten trusted the judgment and wisdom of his father? He could he have betrayed his own son?

Iroh wiped his tears away. He would arrive at the palace later in the evening, and he would face his father, his brother. Then there would be Ursa, his nephew, and his niece.

He patted his pockets. He had forgotten to bring them gifts. There wasn't even a single piece of rice candy in his bags.

He would ask their forgiveness. They would laugh. Well, Zuko would laugh—he was not sure about Azula. Zuko would kiss his cheek and offer him nuts or peaches from their garden. Azula would—who knew what Azula would do? Perhaps she would laugh after a cold moment. Perhaps she would sneer that she was not a child to be pacified by sweets.

Something was wrong with that child. There was too much of Ozai in her—he saw it in the hard flash of her eyes, the cruel set of her mouth.

Did she even care about candy or forgotten gifts? Did she even know how to be a child? He couldn't tell from the letters that Ursa had written him. She had made no mention of the doll he had sent to Azula, though she had told him how much Zuko had adored the knife.

When he arrived at the palace, his brother was there to meet him, though Ursa was not by his side. His face was drawn, tightened, and lined with an age that Iroh found surprising. Their embrace was brief, though Ozai did whisper a word of consolation before he put his hands on his shoulders, holding Iroh at arm's length. "I have news for you."

"So much news," Iroh said. "Is it good?" He had no desire for more bad news.

Ozai's face hardened, his eyes gleaming with something sharp. "I suppose it depends on how you felt about our father. He died some days ago. It took us all by surprise."

Iroh stepped from the weight of his brother's palms on his shoulder. "Why am I only learning of this now?" For the first time, he noticed the gold-blazed emblem adorning his brother's head and wondered what it was doing there.

"We sent a messenger hawk," Ozai returned, "but I suppose it failed to deliver its message."

Iroh blinked slowly at Ozai. There had been no news that their father was not in good health. And that the throne had been claimed by a younger brother while the eldest was being defeated by the forces of Ba Sing Se—it made one wonder.

"I suppose this must be such a shock," Ozai said, "but our father was an old man. And I do believe that treachery eased his passing. Surely you have noticed Ursa's absence?"

Iroh nodded. "But that she would do such a thing—that I cannot quite believe."

Ozai shifted towards him, slinging an arm around his shoulders as he escorted him into the palace, away from the greedy onlookers who waited to see how a spurned brother would react upon finding the throne snatched from him.

Perhaps Ozai was not without some measure of kindness.

"Nor could I," Ozai said. His eyes were downcast, his brow heavy. It was as if he truly grieved. "But we found the poison she used, hidden in plain sight in our quarters. Azulon had her banished on his deathbed. Merciful—" Ozai's lip twisted against his teeth – "to the very end."

That Ursa would have been so careless to hide her accessories to regicide in their quarters Iroh did not believe. But as they strode down the palace halls lined with soldiers loyal to the prince that had been by their side these last six hundred days while he unsuccessfully besieged the walls of Ba Sing Se, he knew better than to question Ozai's story.

"I must have declared you his heir," Iroh said. "It would have been the most logical choice, as I no longer have a son." The words fell from his lips, and they lay there at his feet, and he wondered how Ozai could continue to walk all over them, as if they had no more significance than broken glass.

"I am sorry for such a breach in tradition," Ozai said. "It was not something that I expected. I cannot imagine what possessed him to do as he did." He paused then. "I am sorry you had to find out this way."

Iroh, too weary to continue, sagged against a pillar. It still surprised him, vaguely, to realize that Ozai was more concerned with how Iroh would take a lost throne. "I understand." He looked up at Ozai, so tall and so young. His face shifted with surprise, then scorn that Iroh had given in so easily to his schemes. "I am old. My son is dead, my wife is dead. You are young. You have children. Father made the right choice."

Ozai nodded.

Iroh tucked his hands into his sleeves and continued walking. "How are Zuko and Azula handling their mother's absence and their grandfather's passing?"

Ozai huffed something that could have been a laugh, could have been a snort of irritation. "Zuko does not understand, of course. He misses his mother very much, and does not understand where she could have gone. He cries for her, demands me to explain what has happened. Azula—well, she's Azula." His smile seemed almost proud before it vanished. "She and Azulon were close you know—as close as Azulon could be to anyone. Not something we could have predicted when we named her, but it certainly turned out to be appropriate."

"Of course," Iroh said.

Ozai paused before the entrance to the room in which he held his war councils. "Forgive me, brother. I have urgent business to which I must attend—this business with Ba Sing Se—" he shook his head. "Your chambers remain the same—untouched since you left them save for when the servants cleaned them."

"Your generosity is much appreciated," Iroh said. They bowed to each other, then parted. Iroh sighed heavily, wishing for a soothing cup of tea. Even a cup of the weakest, coldest tea would be welcome.

He found his way to his chambers and deposited his single bag onto the bed. He had left with so much—his pai sho board, his combat gear, his regalia armor to be worn in the moment of his victory, his son—

He shook himself, and peered out the window when he heard children's voices drifting upwards. A boy and a girl, he thought.

Azula and Zuko. He leaned farther out the window—but Ozai was nowhere in sight. No adults were. No one who could be considered a caregiver. Iroh leaned against the sill, his breath heavy, his eyes closed until he turned his back on them, changed into something a little more comfortable, and made his way outside.

He lingered in the shadows of the mimosa trees, already blooming with their pink delicate flowers. He plucked one and slipped it behind his ear.

Both Azula and Zuko were by the duck pond. Zuko sat by the water, his face buried in his knees, while Azula stood over him.

"I don't know why you're so upset," Azula said, her voice shrill. "Look around. Now we're the prince and princess. Everybody wants to be us, but they can't!"

Zuko took a moment to lift his head. His cheeks were streaked with tears. "Are you crazy? Lu Ten should be prince, but he's dead—but why do you care? It's not like you wanted him or Uncle Iroh to come back alive anyway."

Iroh held his hand over his heart, his teeth biting into his lips.

Azula paced around him so that she stood by his other side. Zuko turned his face away. "Don't pretend you don't benefit from this. Things will be better now, you'll see. Unless you don't understand what we can do now, how no one can stop us. After all, Father will expect you to act like a prince now." She clasped her hands under her chin, a cruel smile carving itself from her lips. "Are you a Dumb-Dumb, Zuzu?"

She had the same hungry look that burned in Ozai's eyes.

Zuko pushed himself to his feet, his hands heavy on Azula's shoulders as he shook her. "Mom's gone, and you don't even care. She could be dead!"

Azula easily shoved him away from her, and he staggered back. "Oh, please. I don't know why you're being so dramatic." She found a smooth stone at her feet and skipped it towards the flock of turtle-ducks, scattering them right and left as she laughed.

Zuko kicked the next stone out of reach as she bent to pick it up. "Mom said not to do that!"

Azula looked around, exaggerating the movements of her neck, the wideness of her eyes. "Didn't you just say that she was gone?" Her voice lowered into a whisper. "Forever?" She loomed over her brother even though he was taller than her. "So who's going to stop me—you?"

Zuko turned from her, kicking at a tuft of grass. "This is your fault somehow—I just know it."

"My fault?" She laughed so hard she held her stomach. "What could I have done?" She laughed again, shrill and high, covering her face with her hand.

Zuko whirled on her, his face red. "Maybe you're a monster, just like Mom always said. Maybe you're not really ours at all—just someone somebody left with us because they didn't want you anymore, and the only person who'd take you in was Mom because she was good and kind."

Her laughter disappeared, leaving only a smirk. "Well, look how that turned out for her."

Zuko's mouth fell open, as if he waited for the right words to come but there was no word that would mean what he needed it to mean. "I hate you," he said, his voice quiet and hard.

Azula kicked his feet out from under him so that he fell to his knees. She curled her fingers into the cloth around his neck, and hissed, "You don't hate me." She leaned closer. "You fear me. You fear what you think I've done, and what I could do to you without Mom to stop me. You fear me like Mom feared me."

She shoved him backwards so that he had to roll in order to regain his balance. He brushed himself off and, without another word, left Azula standing there by the pond, hand on her hip, watching him slip away with her mouth closed, eyes glittering.

When he was gone, she knelt beside the pond—perfectly still. The turtle-ducks began to cluster in a group once more. Iroh sighed, wiped his eyes, and stepped from the shadow of the trees.

"You will have to wait a long time for the turtle-ducks to return," he said, standing beside her.

"Or I could just come back later and surprise them." She turned her face up towards him. "They never know when I'm coming."

Iroh sat down heavily beside her. He let his fingers play in the cold water, tracing circles against the limpid surface. "It must be hard for them, knowing their home is never safe."

"How much did you hear, Uncle?"

He lifted his hand, flicked the water from his fingers, and tucked it back into his sleeve. The grass was green and coarse. It pricked his skin. "Enough."

She stood, and paced around him with her hands clasped behind her back. She was restless, never still. As if she could not stop burning. "I wouldn't take it personally if I were you," she said lightly. "It's just politics and math. It could have been anyone." She smiled serenely at him.

"It could have been," Iroh agreed. But still, it had been his son, Lu Ten.

"Do you have plans to return to Ba Sing Se, to renew the siege?"

Iroh bowed his head. "I do not. I believe that I am done with the war."

"Isn't running away from a fight what cowards do?" She turned her face away, possibly to hide the insolence in her eyes. "No wonder grandfather didn't name you his heir."

Iroh frowned at her. "I grieve for my son. He was my only one, and I loved him. The crown will need sons, and your father has Zuko."

"My parents—my father doesn't need another son," she said, her chin high and proud. "Not when he has me."

"Then I suffer the misfortune of not having a daughter such as yourself," Iroh whispered.

Azula tilted her head, and breathed deeply. Fire raged through her hand, sizzling the air. The turtle-ducks cried out in alarm. "There's no one like me. I'm a prodigy. Father said so."

"That I believe."

Azula sat beside him, then tugged on his arm so that she could slip her hand in his when it fell free. "You are not at all like I imagined you, Uncle. I imagined a dragon to be so much fiercer—someone who could swallow Ba Sing Se whole or burn it to the ground in revenge instead of coming back home crying."

Iroh pulled his hand from hers. "You are not alone in your disappointment, I'm sure." Though perhaps he alone grieved for his son. They sat in silence a little while longer, and Iroh spoke before Azula could find something cruel to say. "What do you know about your mother, Azula? Where has she gone?"

"Oh, Uncle," Azula said, lowering her head though her eyes remained fixed on his face. "I'm sure you know more about that than me, as my father insists that it's a matter for the grown ups." Then, for the first time, she seemed to hesitate. "What has he told you?"

Iroh bowed his head. He could not imagine what had gone on in the months he had been away. He wondered that he had heard no word of this in Ursa's letters. Of course, she had been concerned for Azula, of course she had mentioned that she seemed more like her father. But this cruelty surprised him. It scared him. "He has told me enough."

Her face fell in disappointment.

After sitting for a little while in silence, Azula rose and left Iroh behind, staring into the pool.

Slowly, the turtle-ducks came, and he thought of how he and his son had once fed them, before the war had called.

He closed his eyes and wept.


	3. What Ty Lee Said

Zuko's coronation took place the next day. Azula watched from her window, her palm parting the soft gauze of her curtain as Zuko took his place on the platform beneath the watching eyes of the Earth Kingdom, the Fire Nation, and the Water Tribe. The gold, multi-tendriled flame glinted from his top-knot as he addressed the nations, though she could not hear him clearly.

Her eyes did not linger on Zuko, but on the people before him—how they did not bow, how they did not seem afraid in his presence. She remembered when her father had been crowned, how everyone had cowered at his feet, not daring to look upon him.

The Avatar, so small even in his too-big robes, stood beside him. They embraced each other, and she clutched the sill with her first.

They had once united against the Avatar and now—now Zuko greeted him as if he were family? As if they were friends?

When he ruined everything? When he had brought their great nation low? He had always been a thorn in their side, and now the thorn had buried itself in their nation's heart, and Zuko welcomed him as a brother.

Azula abandoned the window, and began to pace the room even as she remembered to compose herself as her father was always telling her to do.

She closed her eyes and began one of the more intermediate firebending sets. Nothing happened as she had expected, but her body settled into the familiarity of it, her breath focused on the rise and fall of her stomach, and she found herself beginning to calm.

Whenever she regained her bending her body would be ready for it. She would find that piece of herself that had been carved from her flesh. The scar burned into her by the imprisonment of her father, by the disappearing comment, would heal like it had never been.

In the meantime though, she could not stay here trapped like some pet to be thought of only when necessary, when to be fed or to be walked or tamed.

She waited for Li and Lo to come to her—the only people Azula imagined that Zuko had allowed to stay from their old life. They laughed, giggling like the girls they had been ages ago, girls who had swam in the waters of Ember Island, girls who had been young and beautiful.

Their breaths smelled of mango as they whispered secrets in each other's ears, and it wasn't until Azula cleared her throat that they jerked to her attention.

"Li and Lo, right?" Azula said. She didn't want to speak, and her palms itched as she scraped at her skin with her blunted nails. "Those are your names, aren't they?"

They nodded. They had expected a quiet, docile princess, still reeling from the shock of her loss, lying abed as if she were dead or worse.

They had underestimated her.

"I want to speak to my brother. To the Fire Lord. If he can spare the time for his disgraced, dishonored sister."

She smiled when they scurried from her room, fumbling in their old lady slippers, to bring Zuko to her as quickly as they could.

Azula waited a long time for her brother to come to her. He was demonstrating that he didn't have to listen and come when she called. Well, she'd been playing that game since she was small, and he'd never be good at it like she had been.

After all, who, between the two of them, had actually sat on a throne before?

Nausea roiled through her belly as she paced in spiraling corkscrews in her room. Her bare feet sank into the plush carpets that slowly flattened under her weight as she turned and turned.

It was dark when there was a soft knock at her door. Interesting—Zuko certainly had never made a habit of knocking whenever he came into her room, demanding to know about what terrible thing she had done now. But then, neither had she, like when she had actually taken the trouble to warn him. "Come in," she said, pausing her pacing for a moment. She must be still, serene, composed. He must not see her like this, she thought, as she ran her fingers through her hair.

But it wasn't Zuko who had come to her—it was Ty Lee, her long braid swinging over her shoulder, her head poking around the frame of the door as she blinked her brown eyes at Azula. Each bat of her lashes flayed Azula's skin as the floor seemed to slide from under her feet, stomach lurching as her balance shifted, and she swayed as her hand reached for the wall that she might not fall.

Ty Lee no longer wore pink nor the nimble slippers that allowed her to walk the tight ropes but rather kyoshi green, the fabric rustling softly as she fell to her knees and said, "Princess Azula."

Azula clung to the words as she slowly turned her attention towards her, as her ragged nails scraped against the palm of her hand. This was the person who had betrayed her, who had chosen Mai over her, who had taken away her bending. Suspicion hardened her mouth. Was Ty Lee smiling or smirking or laughing at her after behind the words? It was hard to tell with all the face paint.

How Mai would hate to see her like this. How did she stand it?

"What are you doing down there, groveling? Didn't I say I never wanted to see your face again?" She waited a few moments. "You're embarrassing yourself."

Promptly, Ty Lee settled onto her heels and flipped her fan so that it veiled her face.

It was insolent of her. But then, Ty Lee had always been a little insolent even when she obeyed her orders—Azula could see that now, in retrospect.

Azula reached out and plucked the fan from Ty Lee's loose grip. She threw it away.

"I just wanted to see you again," Ty Lee said. "I miss you, Princess Azula."

Azula put her back to Ty Lee, her arms folded. She didn't like Ty Lee dressed like this-not this time. Wasn't she a Fire Nation girl? She wondered if she had showed them how to take someone's bending away.

It was a secret that Ty Lee had never shared with Azula. Not that Azula had ever asked for it—but she shouldn't have had to ask for it.

Ty Lee should have just given it to her.

Azula chewed the inside of her her mouth as she watched Ty Lee's reflection through the window.

"You're angry," Ty Lee said. Her voice trembled. Her eyes threatened to overspill with tears.

Azula squeezed hers shut. She went to smooth her hair, and her hand fell to empty space, still expecting the long lengths of hair even though they were gone (because she had cut it herself).

"Guards!" she called, but there was no answer to her summons. They would not obey her command that they drag Ty Lee away, not as they had once done before. But she knew they were there—she had heard them switch places with each other.

Ty Lee still remained on her knees—but not in something resembling a bow. She sat at ease, her eyes raised, watching Azula.

"We were unstoppable," Ty Lee said. "We three. You, Mai, and me." She hesitated for a moment. "You don't have to be alone, locked up in here—we could be all that again."

Azula breathed deeply, guiding air to her belly, but there was nothing within her, not even a whisper or a promise of embers half-buried in ash. There was nothing but her empty body, scooped hollow when her father had abandoned her, broken open when Katara had defeated her. Everything that mattered had flowed through those shattered pieces, and then washed away when Katara had released her from the water.

She had lost everything. The kingdom, the throne, her bending. It was all her fault.

Her eyes flash opened, and she jutted her jaw, grinding her teeth against each other as she bit down the snarl that rose to her lips—the snarl that once would have meant something, that had banished a half dozen people who should have stayed away and yet they returned—and there was Ty Lee still sitting on the floor as if she belonged there.

And yet her muscles were tensed, as if she were ready for a fight if Azula were to bring one to her.

As if she would humiliate herself again. As if she had anything left for Ty Lee to ruin.

"You were going to burn, Mai," Ty Lee said, apparently undeterred by Azula's silence. But that was Ty Lee—never able to take a hint. "You would have broken us apart." Her face fell. "You made that happen anyway, but I know that you would have regretted burning Mai." She smiled, desperately. "I did you a favor!"

"Regret?" Azula said, forcing herself to smile. "You don't know anything—you're just a stupid girl, and you always will be."

Ty Lee laughed. "You sound like Mai. She was always so afraid of being like those stupid girls. I always wondered what she meant by that."

Azula dug her bare toes into the carpet, her fingers twisting through her robes. "I'm not like Mai or like you—and you could never hope to be like me."

"You are so beautiful and so perfect," Ty Lee said, nodding her head in agreement. "But trapped in this room? I could never hope for that. It's not even a proper room anymore. It looks sad. Where are all your things, Azula?"

Frowning, Azula clutched her robe to her, her arms folded tightly across her belly. She stared at the space her mirror should have been, the one she had broken when she had seen her mother for the first time in years—after wondering what had happened to her all this time. She could still hear her mother's soft voice.

 _You always_ _had such beautiful hair. I didn't want to miss my own daughter's_ _coron_ _ation_ _._

Like she had missed her son's.

For a moment, she wanted to ask if Zuko had seen her too, but she knew he had not. It had been nothing-it had been a dream, a hallucination. But she wasn't like what they said, she wasn't crazy.

But still—she couldn't help but think about her mother's fingers in her hair, how she would have braided it, how she would have piled it high to receive the burning flame, if she had really been there.

There was a hesitant touch on her elbow, and Azula stared at Ty Lee's bare fingers on her skin. Her other hand held the gloves she had pulled from her hands. Azula jerked away but Ty Lee followed the motion like water and nausea rose in Azula's belly as she stared resolutely away.

"Do you remember when we were in the Drill when we first attacked Ba Sing Se—and you ordered us to follow Katara and Sokka while you went after the Avatar? They went into the drainage pipe—and I, pretty Ty Lee all in pink, jumped in after them?" Ty Lee wrapped her strong, thin fingers loosely around Azula's wrist as she stood on tiptoe to whisper in her ear. "I did all that because you told me to."

Azula pulled away from her, and this time, Ty Lee let her. "Then stop talking—you're exhausting me."

Azula folded her arms, hands tucked into the crooks of her elbows, and leaned her head against the cold stone of the wall. Her pulse pitter-pattered in the soft yield of her throat, in that same space where her father had squeezed, and her eyes blinked in time with it.

Ty Lee drifted beside her. She had found her fan and was fluttering it over her mouth as she leaned against the wall, her elbow braced against it. It was the same pose she had adopted when she was trying to teach Azula how to talk to boys—as if she had needed any help.

"Tell me you're sorry," Azula said, her eyes fixed on the bed, the covers all wrinkled, not neat at all. "Tell me you won't do it ever again." It would mean something even though the words would be useless. She had lost her bending, she was a prisoner, a princess in name only. She had no power, no way to inspire fear to give the apology real meaning. Maybe if she had burned Mai, then maybe—but no. Her hands folded into fists. There was nothing. She had nothing. She was nothing. She had seen it in her father's eyes.

Ty Lee flicked her fan closed. She crept even closer, so that they were very nearly pressed together as she entwined her fingers through Azula's. And before she could stop herself, before she could think twice, such a bad habit Ty Lee was, Azula did the same.

"I'm sorry," Ty Lee whispered. "I'm sorry that this has happened to you. I'm sorry that I hurt you."

Azula finally let herself meet Ty Lee's gaze. Her eyes were soft, and there was a flush cresting the smooth rises of her cheeks. The curve of her mouth peeked like something shy above the gilded edge of her fan, even though that had never been Ty Lee. Azula swallowed, unable to look away even though she had never wanted to see her again. "Prove you're sorry—you took it away once, can you give it back."

Ty Lee smiled sadly. "I don't know, Azula."

"Then try. Try it on me," Azula said. She forced her voice to be soft, she pushed in close to Ty Lee. She guided her hand to the point where she had first struck her, flinching as their knuckles grazed her skin. It still ached from memory of the blow, though no bruise had ever formed. It still hurt. It would always hurt. "And everything will be forgiven."

For the first time in Azula's memory, Ty Lee, as she stood on tiptoe, whispered in the shell of her ear, "No."

This time, Ty Lee let her go when Azula wrenched her hands from Ty Lee's hold. "What did you say to me?" Anger clawed at her throat, and she gasped through it as she raised her fist, prepared to strike before remembering that she could not, that Ty Lee would defeat her, and she could not—would not-let that happen again.

"I won't try," Ty Lee said, her hands clasped in front of her chest. "You don't understand, Azula. It's just so much easier when we don't have to worry about your blue fire or your lightening or that you'll banish us because we said something you didn't like. We have other people in our lives besides you."

"I am your princess!" Azula said.

"You are." Ty Lee pulled on her gloves again. "You'll always be a Fire Nation princess to me." She raised her hand, and tucked a strand of Azula's hair behind her ear. "I just don't want to be afraid of you anymore."

Azula slapped Ty Lee's hand away. "Is that why you joined the Kyoshi Warriors? So that you don't have to be afraid? Haven't you always been afraid that someone would look at you and see one of your pathetic sisters instead, that'd you'd always be part of a set? Look at you—I would never be able to tell you apart from any one of them!" Her skin crawled as she saw Ty Lee slip her fan once more into her belt.

Ty Lee shook her head at Azula. "You're upset. I think that I should go."

"Yes, go!" Azula shouted at Ty Lee's retreating back. She dragged her hand over her face, pulling out the hair that Ty Lee had tucked behind her ear. It was hard to breathe. She held up her hand as if expecting to see a mark that Ty Lee had left behind. But there was nothing but her clammy skin, shaking as if she were old and trembling. She hid her hands in her robe and paced as she waited for Zuko to heed her summons.

It would have been too easy, she supposed, if Ty Lee would have restored her bending.

Well, Zuko had always said she'd had it easy. He was wrong, again. Like he always was.

She waited for what seemed hours. She paced until her strength failed her. She practiced the firebending sets she had once taught Zuko until sweat streamed from her body, soaking her clothes and skin.

Nothing happened.

There was not enough of her to fill her body.

She remembered her blue scorching fire that had once surged through her, that had once destroyed entire kingdoms, that had scarred him. She shouted and screamed for Zuko as she fell to her knees, as her hands clawed themselves into fists that tore her flesh, looking deeper and deeper for that missing spark, for that blue heart.


	4. Interlude: When They Were Young

_Chapter Notes_

 _No spoilers, but I took some liberties with Ty Lee's backstory._

* * *

Ty Lee first went to the Fire Nation Academy because she had needed to get away from her family—the sixth of six daughters, each one with their brown hair, their brown eyes, their soft jaws, and their sweet faces.

She also went because she was tired of struggling.

Her parents were poor. So poor that when she had come to the academy, they had laughed at her, and told her to go home to the rest of the peasants and nonbenders, or to try her luck in the Earth Kingdom colonies.

But not even Ty Lee had wanted to go so far from home as that.

It was true that they had begged—being poor and hungry, Ty Lee and her family were used to begging. They worked hard but it wasn't enough to feed all those hungry mouths. The soldiers in service to the Fire Lord always demanded more and more, so that Ty Lee was learning trades at a young age from those who would teach her. She did what she could to help her family scrape survival from a village destroyed yearly by shaking earths, and whose air was continuously darkened with ash that made their elderly cough for each and every breath.

But despite Ty Lee's pleas, the Academy still told her no, she could not join them. This was an Academy for Young Ladies, not nonbending peasant people. She showed them what she knew of the human body, learned from the healers in their small, tiny village, who had learned to keep their folk alive from the environment that tried so hard to kill them. They had scoffed at her.

The Head Mistress was already gesturing for the guards to drag her away even though they needed her like she needed them—but they paused when a shrill voice called out for them to stop.

Ty Lee looked around until her eyes fell on a Fire Nation girl, just a little shorter than her. Her top-knot was neat, tightly bound with a simple metal flare of fire. Her clothes were belted neatly at her waist with a deep red sash—very fine, very thick. There was subtle embroidery along the cuffs. Ty Lee's fingers already itched to find where she kept the valuables on her person—to pluck them and sell them for a warm meal that would fill her belly all the way.

They must have known who the girl was because the guards listened and the face of the head mistress paled.

The girl came to Ty Lee. There was a look of aloof detachment in her face, but still she held out her hand in order to help Ty Lee rise to her feet. "Why so rude?" she asked to the guards. "Isn't the Academy supposed to teach us good manners?"

Ty Lee trembled to see a girl who couldn't have been older than her—a girl of six or seven years old—hold such command. Her mouth filled with water, and though she knew she was hungry and thirsty, she had not realized that her throat was a desert, and the attention this girl commanded was the purest water.

She could drink from this girl for an age.

"She just showed you something amazing," the girl continued, brushing a bit of dirt from Ty Lee's weather worn pink trousers. "And you throw her in the streets because you think you're too good for her?" Her lips curled in scorn.

She turned back to Ty Lee, patting her shoulders so she stood straight. "They think they're wise, don't they?" Then she turned from Ty Lee, and held her arms wide as if she held an offering. "I have a proposal. I am Azula, daughter of Ozai, son of Azulon—surely those names are familiar to you?" She said it sweetly, but the smile that played around her mouth was sharp, cunning. It made Ty Lee's skin prickle, and she wondered if she should flee or if she should stay.

This girl was no noble. She was of the royal family. And she had noticed her, some peasant from the poorest parts of the Fire Nation.

Ty Lee was unsure how she managed to keep breathing.

Azula paused just long enough for the surrounding people to shuffle uncomfortably in their boots. "She and I duel. If she beats me, the firebending prodigy—" pillars of orange flame erupted from her palms—"then she will attend the Academy with me."

One of the women raised their hands.

"Yes" Azula said, after several moments had passed.

"What if she loses?"

Azula shrugged. "Then do what you were going to do and send her home." She turned back to Ty Lee and bowed, ever so slightly. "What's your name?"

"Ty Lee," she said, returning the bow. "Thank you, thank you so much."

"For what?" Azula said. "You haven't won, yet."

Ty Lee dropped into an offensive stance, her fingers crooked and waiting. "Just for giving me the chance."

"We'll see about that," Azula said.

And for the first time, Ty Lee faltered. Because what if this was just a trap? What if Azula just saw her as another person to humiliate, to remind her exactly who she was in the larger scheme of things—that she was nothing but but a poor, lowly peasant and that was all she would ever be? What if, even if she did win, Azula wouldn't keep her word, or people would realize they were taking orders from a six year old, royalty or no?

But she set her jaw, and dodged neatly out of the way as Azula opened with a languid fireball.

"Is that it?" Ty Lee said. She hadn't even felt a flicker of heat.

Azula smoothed the strands of hair that framed her face. "You seemed distracted. That was just a test to give you a chance to catch up. I want a real challenge. Don't you?"

And then she volleyed a fierce set of fire at Ty Lee, and Ty Lee lunged forward, bent low. She broke Azula's root, and she staggered backwards. Ty Lee gripped Azula's arm, and pulled her shoulder back so that she could more easily access the vulnerable pressure points that would weaken Azula's chi. It had been something she had been experimenting with, but she hadn't tried it on an actual bender yet. She knuckled Azula hard, and flitted away. Azula's fire flickered into a ribbon of smoke. For a moment, her mouth twisted into a snarl that revealed her teeth, but then it was gone with that strange cold smile as she raised her hands in surrender.

Ty Lee had expected a tougher fight from a royal firebending prodigy. She stood back, uncertain.

"I know when I've been beaten," Azula said. "Well done." She turned back to the school adminstrators. "Please make the necessary arrangements for Ty Lee to begin attending immediately."

The school administrators, refusing to meet Azula's eyes, muttered that there was no possible way that Ty Lee would be able to afford to attend such an establishment.

Azula took a step towards them. "You made a promise to a member of the royal house. Are you going to break that promise?"

"But—"

Azula held out her hand, and they ceased talking. "My father will see to the necessary payments. For now, make sure that she has a place in the year's classes."

A stunned silence descended as the two girls made their way from the public view. "I don't even know how to thank you," Ty Lee whispered. It still didn't feel quite real to her. Her sudden switch in fortune had left her dizzy, breathless.

"Oh there's no need," Azula said. "I imagine that we are going to be friends for a very long time. My father will make your father a noble of some sort, of course, so our friendship won't be inappropriate." Her cheeks flushed. "We can do that you know. We can do anything we want because we're of the royal family, and the Fire Lord is my grandfather." She looked proud when she said it. She looked like someone important.

Ty Lee stopped and threw her arms around Azula. It took Azula a few moments for her to return the embrace, though her arms were loose and stiff around Ty Lee's shoulders. "I'd like to be your friend—I'd like that very much."

She escorted Azula to her quarters, where she was told to meet her tomorrow morning. Sure, Ty Lee didn't have a place to sleep tonight, but the night was warm and food was easily snatched and it wouldn't be forever. There was an end in sight, now, and she hadn't thought that would be possible—not for her.

They were going to be a noble family. They would have plenty to eat. They would have fine clothes—clothes just as fine as Azula's.

As she walked down the streets, looking for a good place to sleep that night, a girl with shiny black hair cut in sharp bangs across her forehead pushed herself from the shadows, blocking Ty Lee. Her face was pale and sallow, her mouth turned down. This was not the face of a girl who smiled often. Her voice was honed and sharp like drawn twin blades. "You're not bothered that Azula let you win."

"You startled me," Ty Lee said. She had already realized that Azula had lost on purpose. It bothered her a little, because Azula seemed like the girl who didn't like to lose. Which meant the game she was playing was a little more complicated than a schoolyard duel. But like everything else with her life, she would worry about that when it became a real problem instead of just a question looking for an answer. "It wasn't really about the fight." Ty Lee shrugged.

The girl fell in step beside Ty Lee. "The duels the students start are boring," she said. "They fight like stupid girls. The stakes make it a little more interesting, I suppose. I know yours—but I don't know Azula's."

Ty Lee thought there was a good chance that whatever arrangement she had entered with Azula would end with both girls getting what they wanted, and that was all that mattered. "She wants friendship," Ty Lee said. "And that I can easily give. I like making friends. I like having friends. What's your name?"

It took a moment but then the girl sniffed. "Mai."

"We should be friends," Ty Lee said.

Mai made a skeptical noise, but said nothing.

Ty Lee looped her hands around Mai's elbow. "I think we're all going to be such good friends. You, me, and Azula." She knew they would. She knew that together, they probably could do anything, that no one would try to stop them, that no one would think of hurting them ever again.


	5. The Proposal

When Azula heard the door open, she scrambled to her feet so that no one would see her abject on the floor, spent from her exertions, spent from waiting.

"You called," Zuko said.

She could see their Uncle Iroh behind him, his eyes hard, his brow frowning.

"I did—Fire Lord Zuko," she said, bowing as she had once bowed before her father—though, perhaps, not quite so low. "Please, sit." She gestured to bed, the only piece of furniture that remained to her, but both Zuko and Uncle shook their heads, so she sat down herself.

"What do you want, Azula?" Uncle Iroh's hands were tucked in his sleeves, and he held himself distant, as always.

She took a calming breath. It was just like the old days that weren't so long ago, Iroh and Zuko working together against her. Even when Zuko was on her side, he wasn't really—not with his Uncle's words of wisdom lingering in his ears. For a moment, she was grateful for her exhaustion—she hoped it would dull how they perceived her. "What is to become of me, Lord Zuko?"

Her brother frowned. He still did not wear his hair as Father had. It hung low, tangled. As if he hadn't even taken the time to have it combed. Disgraceful. She smoothed her own hair as she waited.

"I don't know," Zuko said. "I haven't decided yet."

Azula tried to make her voice gentle. "I have been here for days. I do not take kindly to being locked in my room." She tried a smile. Once, it had been so easy to smile. Of course, they hadn't been very nice smiles, according to those who saw them, according to people like her mother.

Uncle Iroh stirred himself. "You pursued the Avatar, attempted to kill Aang, conquered Ba Sing Se, and then tried to kill Zuko. You are hardly an innocent."

"And Zuko also participated during three of those events, and yet he sits the throne while I am grounded like a child." She examined her fingers and missed her long, sharp nails. "As I recall, we were mutually attempting to kill each other at the time—or are you saying that you would have caught me with the Avatar's flying bison when we both fell from the Western Air Temple?" Azula shook her head at him. "I distinctly recall you watching me as I fell until I saved myself. You would have let me die, don't try to deny it."

Zuko pinched the bridge of his nose.

"And let's not forget how many times Zuko captured the Avatar." Not that he had ever been able to keep him, but she wouldn't taunt him with that now.

"But I regret my past actions against the Avatar—I was. I was trying to figure some stuff out about me and my father and—"

Azula feigned a yawn, and smiled when Zuko's eyes flashed with something like irritation. She watched carefully for him to firebend. She remembered how it was in those early days, when he was easily angered, easily frustrated, all revealed in flame and smoke. But now—there was nothing.

"What Zuko is trying to say," Iroh said, coming to the rescue as always, "is that it's slightly different for him."

"Of course it is," Azula said sweetly. "He's the Fire Lord."

Iroh shook his head. "No. He found out what kind of man he was on his own. And he changed—for the better. He balanced the two sides of himself that are always at war within him. And it won't always be easy, but he has come a long way in becoming the man I knew he could be."

Zuko turned toward his Uncle in a display of affection so disgusting that Azula could barely contain her revulsion.

"I heard about those two sides, I think," Azula said, tapping her chin as she rose and began to pace in a slow circle around them both. "Of course, it's not common knowledge that Sozin was once friends with the Avatar, though that changed when he succeeded in killing him once, and failed killing him again. And I suppose it's even less commonly known that our dear mother was a descendent of Avatar Roku." She paused in front of them, and clasped her hands together against her chest. "But Avatar Roku and Sozin are in my lineage as well. I, too, am at war with myself." She slid to the floor, bent herself prostrate like her brother had done when he begged his father for mercy. "I deserve the same chance my brother had. The Avatar said that I was out of balance." She paused, preparing to say the one thing they would be unable to deny her lest they prove themselves hypocrites."Give me the chance to restore my honor."

She glanced up. Their arms were folded, their mouths hard. She set her jaw.

"Give me the chance to restore the honor of my family. Of our nation. Of myself." She forced herself to remain still. "Why should Zuko do this alone? We share the same blood, the same past, the same legacy. We're brother and sister, after all. It's important that we share this burden together."

Zuko's voice sounded pained as he said her name.

But Uncle pushed him away. "Do not trust her, Zuko. She does not believe in honor—and she never will. How many times has she lied to you?"

"Azula always lies," Zuko said, as if by rote.

It was true, of course. Time and time again, she had lied, and time and time again, Zuko had believed her, like when she had told him his father wanted him back. But there were times where she didn't lie, because the truth was so much better. "I didn't lie when I told you that I needed you in Ba Sing Se," she said. "I didn't lie when I said that only you could restore your honor. I didn't lie when I told you that Father was going to kill you. I'm not lying about this." She looked up at them and waited. Their uncle shook his head, but Zuko had his bowed, as if he were considering it.

"And what do you propose?" Zuko said as he looked at her past his Uncle.

Her knees were aching from being bowed so long, but she allowed no sign to pass over her face. "Anything you wish. I'm sure you'll be able to think of something suitable."

"Hah," Zuko said, his voice dry, and she almost smiled.

She kept her head low, her eyes fixed on his boots. The silence hung heavy against her neck. Then the unbound fringe of Zuko's hair fell into her sight, and she lifted her eyes to see that he was kneeling in front of her. It wasn't right that a Fire Lord should kneel. Father would never have done so.

"Do you know where Mom is?"

Azula frowned, a familiar itch returning to stitch itself under her skin. "Didn't you ask me that when we were kids, and I said that no one knew?"

"I know that Father had her banished. He told me when I visited him."

Azula breathed carefully. That Zuko had also visited their father—something strange and terrible and vulnerable settled somewhere in her chest, and she pushed it away.

"If he told me that, surely he told you more," Zuko said. "You were always his favorite."

Once that would have been true, but lately she had come to realize she had fallen from her father's confidence, that she was not the trusted daughter she had always imagined herself to be for so long, and as Zuko imagined still. Her mouth dried up as her hands clenched into fists. It was just like that time he hadn't told her until the last second that he was leaving her behind, that he was crowning himself Phoenix King and leaving her as Fire Lord in his place, as if he'd even need a Fire Lord once he had proclaimed himself ruler over every nation.

He never told her anything. He just—he just used her ideas and then he—

"Azula? Didn't he ever tell you where he banished her?"

She picked at her nails, cleaned them of dirt that was long gone from the last time she had cleaned them as she waited for Zuko to come. "Why would he tell me anything?"

"Because you both hated her," Zuko said.

"Oh, Zuko. You overestimate my feelings towards her. I don't care what happened to her." She met his eyes. "You know she is probably dead—or she would have found you during the course of your three year banishment. I'm sure you would have had a lot to talk about."

Zuko sat back, his wrists dangling from his knees. He looked away from her. "That is what I thought as well."

"Zuko—" Iroh put his hands on Zuko's shoulders.

Azula watched as something soured in her stomach. She wondered how much Zuko knew about what had been done that night, so long ago. She wondered if he knew as much as she did. "She must have done something terrible to be banished."

"Whatever she did, she did it for me." Zuko sounded vaguely defensive. "She said as much when I saw her last, when she came to say goodbye. And Ozai said the same."

"What do you know about that?" Iroh said, looking at her as if he knew she was holding something back.

Azula studied the ground between her knees. She played with one of the threads in her robe, twisting it between her fingers as she pulled and pulled. It was not a night she thought about frequently. She didn't like thinking about it. It reminded her of Mom pulling on her arm until it hurt. It reminded her of how she had told Mom about Zuko, what she had heard Azulon demand of their father. It reminded her of how Father had agreed to do it. It reminded her of how Azulon had died, and how she had seen him one more time before it happened. It reminded her of how she had pulled Zuko with her behind the curtains, and how he should have stayed with her so that he could have seen what she had seen and understood how much stronger he would need to be. She pulled the thread, stringing it tight around her finger. It made her remember the times when Zuko said they had been happy, though she knew that it was a lie: their family had never been happy, and she knew that because of the things she had seen in hiding. It was depressing, and she hated how thinking back on these things and that night made something inside her cry out without words, like when Ty Lee had betrayed her. She raised her head and smiled at Uncle Iroh. "I know that she did not come and say goodbye to me before she sneaked away into the night. But then, she always did like Zuko better. She wouldn't have done what she did for me. Not that I mind because Grandfather Azulon always liked me better and would never have asked for my death. I guess Mom would still be alive if more people liked Zuko better than me."

They didn't rise to the bait—not that Azula had expected them to. They all knew that Azulon had been a cruel man, and that Ozai had been crueler still. The wonder was that so many of them were still alive—and she remembered, as if from a great distance, her hysterical challenge to Zuko on the top of the warship—her destiny to be an only child.

Father had been so upset with her in those days—she felt stupid now for even thinking he would have let her join him as he decimated the Earth Kingdom. She had let Zuko escape in his ship. She had let Zuko escape from the prisons. Then she had lost Mai and Ty Lee—not that he would have cared about them except as more proof that his daughter was not good enough.

Failure had haunted her steps, and her cheeks flushed at their memory.

What was wrong with her, that she had failed so much, when she was so good at everything? It was Zuko's fault. She had brought him home in victory, and then he had left again of his own free will. He had left everything behind, as if everything was worthless. Everything had changed after that, everything had gone wrong. But why? Zuko—Zuko was nobody. Nobody needed Zuko. And yet his absence was a scar, a wound that never completely healed because of the embarrassment he had caused, because of the way their father had raged at Zuko's failures. In a way, Zuko had been present even in his absence. And when he had returned, there had been peace, they had sat beside their father as they plotted the destruction of the Earth Kingdom together. Then it was all destroyed when Zuko had left, again, but never really leaving as their father made his plans around his absence. It wasn't as if Azula would have been left behind if Zuko had stayed. They would have both been on the airship, beside their father, empowered by the comet, burning the Earth Kingdom to the ground.

She raised her eyes to meet Zuko's, pushing aside the thoughts that circled in her head. She didn't care about them. They didn't matter. The only thing that mattered was getting out of this room without being hounded by her brother and the Avatar.

"You could send me to look for her," Azula said. "She might be dead, but people don't just disappear. Father sent you on a quest in exile to discover the Avatar, so send me after our mother, and have all your questions answered upon my return."

Iroh pulled Zuko aside. "She is too dangerous to wander the kingdoms alone. She may not have her bending, but she has always been deadly and cunning. She is attempting to manipulate you, by attempting to speak a language you understand. Lord Zuko, when has Azula ever cared for honor? How could she want to restore something which she feels she has not lost?" He gripped Zuko's arm. "She is lying to you. Do not listen to her!"

"Everybody deserves second chances, Uncle." Zuko looked back at her. "And I have had many second chances."

Azula sighed. "Well, don't think you have to make a decision right away on my account. After all, it's not as if I have anywhere to go." She ran her fingers through her hair. "But you can't just keep me here forever, Zuko. Either put me in prison with my father, or set me free. Don't keep me grounded like a child."

Iroh shook his head. "If you were ever a child."

Azula smiled at him. "No. I suppose I wasn't."

"Let's go, Zuko," Iroh said, tugging at his arm.

Iroh disappeared but Zuko lingered. "Do you really mean it? About Mom-that you would look for answers?"

"Of course I mean it, or I wouldn't have offered," Azula said. "But I really don't think talking to me is going to help you make up your mind." She pitched her voice higher. "Azula always lies, Azula is crazy and needs to go down." She paused, and her voice returned to normal pitch as she continued. "Well, I am down, right where you want me. Now, what are you going to do about it?"

"I don't know," Zuko said. He stayed for a moment longer, and then left her chambers. He was probably hurrying after his uncle, as if that would help him make up his mind.

Azula paced the floor in circles after he had gone, her fingers interlocking around each other as she tried to figure out what she should do. But she could hardly think. Everything was tangled up and confused. She needed a royal hair-combing. She needed to go out and do something, but she couldn't. She was trapped here, in this room, without servants and without a way to get her bending back so that she could release her father from the cell they held him in.

She was hungry, she was tired, she was thirsty from her pacing, from her fevered thoughts as she kept thinking about their meeting, about their questions regarding what she remembered from that night. She decided that she needed a bath, and then she realized that Li and Lo had not come to attend to her once that day, even though such an absence would have been unthinkable when she had been more than just her brother's prisoner. But that was alright. She didn't need them, she thought, as she drew her own bath.

Water flowed warm and hot, but it cooled too quickly. She held her empty palms, dripping with water, and hated them with a dull resentment that ate through her cold and empty belly. She had nothing to hit, nothing to burn. Pain resided low in the pit of her stomach as she let herself slide beneath the surface of the water until it covered her completely. She watched the bubbles rise from her escaping breath, and then she was trapped in the ice that Katara had bended around her, and she scrambled to her feet so quickly and clumsily that water slopped over the fine edges of the tub. She stood, gasping for breath, as tepid water lapped at her ankles, as water streamed through her hair and down her back. Goosebumps formed on her skin as she shivered in the cold.


	6. Interlude: What Azula Saw

_Content Warning: Domestic Abuse_

* * *

This was how it had always been when Azula was four and Zuko was six.

Azula was small, limber, and lithe. She slipped into the unseen places, lurking in the shadows, watching the people around her. She heard what they said, saw what they did, and did not speak of them, unless the time was right.

Zuko was not like his sister. He preferred the company of his mother to hiding behind the curtains. He liked to smile and he liked to laugh and people could hear him a mile away. He liked to be loved.

They complemented each other, Azula thought, as she watched Zuko feed the turtle-ducks with his mother. The fire lilies were blooming, and Zuko had given her a blossom, and she wore it in her hair.

There were times where Azula didn't understand everything she had heard, but she liked knowing that Li and Lo napped beneath the mimosa trees, that the head of the guard was attempting to get new boots for his soldiers because they complained of an ill fit, that Lu Ten protested the fire-locks on the sages' most sacred libraries because everyone should be able to read them, that Mom and Dad no longer drank their jasmine tea together, and that there was a soldier's wife constantly begging to see Fire Lord Azulon to demand why her husband was so long away at war—but no one ever let her pass the threshold because she was too poor to ask an audience from someone so far her better, and who was she to question the Fire Lord anyway? They laughed at her, oh how they laughed at her, and in time, Azula laughed in her hands when she saw her approach, with her bare rags and her thin face and her watery eyes.

She did not tell Zuko all these things, of course, but she told him about the woman, and he asked her why she laughed, and she said it was funny and he'd understand if he'd watch with her, that he would laugh too. He shook his head. He told her she was probably sad and that maybe one day she would stop coming because he was finally dead.

"Or because we'll win," Azula said.

Zuko normally agreed, and even though he said he agreed with her, he was holding something back. It was as if he thought she was wrong, and that he wouldn't laugh like she and the guards did. But he was wrong, he would, and he didn't come with her because he didn't want to know the truth.

Azula was fine with that. Zuko could do what he wanted, and she was glad that he would listen to her.

He would listen to her when she had difficulties sleeping at night. She slipped from her bed, sometimes sneaking into Zuko's room, shaking his shoulders until he woke up, telling him about the different things she had seen that day, the small things, the ones that were of no consequence, like how Dad would keep the curtains at the window of his study drawn. The study faced the knoll where she practiced her firebending, every day, which meant that he no longer watched her.

"He hasn't been coming to practice for a while now," Zuko said.

It was true. There was a time where he would leave the palace, and join them in the gardens. He would watch them, and sometimes he would clap his hands, and sometimes he would even smile.

But he had stopped doing that some time ago. Still, when Azula rested from a set, she would see the window of his study, the curtains parted, fluttering in the breeze if there was one. And she would see him glancing from his work, watching her firebend through the window, and it wasn't as good as before, but it was something.

Zuko hadn't noticed.

"It's because I'm not a good firebender," she said, even though it wasn't true. She was a prodigy, everybody said so. Something else was stopping him, and one day, she'd find out what.

But Zuko replied, as he always did, "You're the best firebender I've ever seen, and one day you're going to be so great, and Father's going to be so proud of you."

Then she'd say, "Don't regret saying that when I'm better than you!"

And he'd say back, "I can think of no one better to beat me."

"We're on the same side," Azula said, "so we win together. "

They'd wrestle until one of them overpowered the other, until they collapsed for breath, laughing until they were tired and they fell asleep sprawled on the floor.

But one such night, after they had exhausted themselves, Azula told Zuko something she had promised she would not tell him, because if she didn't understand, then Zuko wouldn't understand either. But it bothered her, and so she said, "Haven't you noticed how Mom and Dad don't drink tea together anymore?"

"He's probably just busy," Zuko said. "With Uncle Iroh gone on another campaign—someone has to take over his responsibilities."

"Uncle Iroh is always gone," Azula said.

Zuko squeezed her hand. "He'll be back soon, and then things will go back to normal."

Until Uncle Iroh left again. She had heard rumors that Uncle Iroh had had a vision about conquering the walls of Ba Sing Se. That it would be his destiny. He would always be leaving one last time until the walls fell. But she didn't tell Zuko that.

Instead, they fell asleep, and Azula woke before Zuko did. She slipped from his room and wandered the halls until she found Mom, feeding the turtle-ducks in the early morning light. She kicked at clumps of dirt until she was noticed. "Good morning, Azula."

"Will Dad watch us practice today?"

Mom kept scattering bits of bread to the turtle-ducks. "I don't know." She turned and smiled at Azula. "I'll watch you."

Azula kicked even more viciously at a clump of grass, disturbing a bright green lizard that scurried from her shoe. She leaped after it, attempting to stamp on it, to catch it as it flitted so bright through the leaves—but Mom's hand jerked her shoulder. "What are you doing, Azula? The lizard has done nothing to you."

"It's not like it's a person." Azula struggled against her mother, which only caused her to squeeze harder. "Let me go!" she squealed as she swung wildly with her fists and kicked out with her feet.

"Azula—Azula listen to me," Mom said. "The lizard is not your father."

"I'm not stupid!" Azula sagged in her mother's arms, already spent. She hated that.

She should be strong, strong like her mother was.

"You're angry at him," she said, still holding Azula tightly. "But that doesn't mean you take it out on someone else. It's just a lizard yes—but it's a living being deserving of our respect. It is not a target for your anger."

Azula bit her lip, heart pounding against her ribcage. Her fingers twitched, but her mother had locked her wrists. She couldn't firebend even if she wanted to. How could she even think of that? The first thing all the young children learned was not to use firebending against each other until they had been properly coached, until they were much, much older and experienced.

"I'm going to let you go," Ursa whispered. She loosened her grip, and knelt on the wet grass so that she was eye level with Azula. She smoothed the hair framing Azula's face, and smiled a little. "Your hair is always so beautiful."

"I just want him to be proud of me," Azula said, as she dragged her thumb and forefinger down the long gilded edge of her mother's sleeves. "How can he be proud of me if he doesn't know what I can do?"

Mom pressed a kiss to Azula's temple before she stood. "He's proud of you no matter what. But I will talk to him, alright?"

"Do you promise?"

"I do."

But Mom had promised that she would speak to Father before, and Azula still had not seen his face at practice. So she waited for her mother to disappear before flitting after her.

She followed close until Mom slipped through the curtains into the room Dad favored for his work.

Azula held her breath as she crept towards the curtain and peered through the thin gap between the cloth. Father was there, sitting at the table, bent over scrolls covered in writing that Azula wasn't able to read.

She heard her mother say her father's name.

"Ursa."

A rustle of cloth, and Azula saw that she had seated herself across from Ozai. "Azula has been asking about you. She misses you. She wants you to watch her at practice today."

"I told you I don't have time for such trivialities," Ozai said, and Azula's mouth parted, and something tightened somewhere in her chest—

Ursa sighed, her face downcast, not looking Ozai in the eye. "She is your daughter. Not some triviality. And so is your son. I know he misses you."

Ozai said nothing, simply reached for another scroll. Ursa stopped him from opening it though with a hand on his wrist. "We need to talk about this."

"There's nothing to talk about, Ursa. Iroh is currently on another campaign in the Earth Kingdom. And what shall I do? Watch children play as my brother earns every honor for himself? As I allow him to overshadow me? One day, he'll be sent to Ba Sing Se, and I will be left behind with nothing."

"Ozai," Ursa said, "you have your family. Do not lose them in the chase for something better."

Ozai's other hand tightened over Ursa's, and her mouth tightened, like Zuko's tightened when Azula managed to knee him hard in the stomach and he didn't want to let her know it hurt by crying out. She frowned.

"Will Azula or Zuko be able to ensure our continued place in the Fire Nation? Will Azula or Zuko grant me more audiences with Fire Lord Azulon?"

Ursa's head bowed low. "Why do you call him that? He is your father."

The pain must have been too much as Ursa released Ozai so that he could open the scroll if he wanted to. But he dropped it, letting it roll aside as his hand snaked under her sleeve, pulling her towards him so that she was bent over the table, the hard edge of it pressed against her soft stomach.

Azula put her hand over her mouth.

"He is the Fire Lord, and I must be a son worthy of him. I must try harder to prove myself, since Iroh is given command in the Earth Kingdom."

Mom squirmed against the table, but Father did not release his grip on her.

"While Iroh is handed everything by virtue of being the first born, I struggle to simply even catch the offhand favor of Fire Lord Azulon."

"—you have family here—" Mother's voice shook, like Azula's sometimes shook, like it had almost shook earlier this morning.

"And Iroh will gain the throne when he has not wanted it for as long as I have, when he doesn't need it like I need it, when I deserve it more than he deserves it—that throne should be mine!"

Smoke seeped through the cloth of her mother's sleeve, and Azula could not stop watching its winding path as it twisted up between the two of them, her prone mother and Father leaning over her, one hand pinning her by the wrist, the other hidden by her sleeve.

Ursa's other hand slapped uselessly at him.

"Ozai," she said, her voice finally breaking into a wounded whimper. Little shudders shivered in her shoulders. Her hair stuck to the hot sweat shining high on her cheeks. She pawed the table with her free hand, a wet feeble struggle that her father completely ignored.

"I will have the throne. It will be mine. And I cannot do that if you or Azula or Zuko continue to demand and waste my time."

He finally let her go, his hand slipping from under her sleeve, flexing as if he had a cramp.

It took longer for Ursa to sit up straight again. When she fixed her hair with her trembling and shaking hands, her sleeve fell to her elbow revealing a series of burns—some nearly healed, some pink, and one a bright red—patterning her skin. Her breath came in shaky gasps. "Then I will tell Azula that you are busy, but that you look forward to the time when your responsibilities will ease and you are allowed to watch her again."

He did not answer or look at her as she stood slowly to her feet, her hand leaning on the wall for support as she made her way to the door, her other hand rubbing small circles along her ribcage where it had been pulled against the table.

"Ursa, wait," Father said, dropping his scroll and going after her. He touched her elbow even though she flinched away. But he took the hand that she held close to her stomach, brought it to his lips, and kissed it. He guided her so that he put her palm on his own shoulder while he drew her in closer by sliding his other hand up her neck, coaxing her to tip up her head so that he could kiss her cheek, her mouth, whispering small apologies with each caress.

Mother didn't move under his administrations, and again he was the one who had to guide her so that she hugged him loosely as he embraced her, with his head cradled on her shoulder, eventually guiding her so that she was out of sight of Azula, who still peeked through curtain.

"Ozai—I can't," Mother said. "I need to—"

Azula flitted away, not wanting to see anymore. She dove around the corner as she waited for her mother to come out.

It didn't take long, but when her mother appeared again, she was straightening her clothes and her hair. Her face seemed tight, and lined with worry, and maybe something else.

Azula pretended to be wandering from around the corner, and feigned surprise when she bumped into the legs of her mother. "Did you talk to him?"

"Azula." Mom's voice was fragile, tired.

It grated against Azula. She never wanted to hear Mom sound like that again. Maybe she should have waited—but something drove her, something pricked her, and she wondered if her mother would trust her with what she had seen enough to explain it to her. She reached for her hand. "What happened?"

Mom's face shifted, already settling into the script she had memorized. Azula watched her lips move and sound came from them, the same words she had already heard. She held her mother's hand, the one that Ozai had held. Her fingers curled over the dark shadows already forming from his grip, and her hand crept under Mom's sleeve until—

"Azula, stop!" She didn't slap Azula's hand away—just flapped it away, but not before Azula heard the bitten-back pain in her voice—and she had caused that one. Her skin burned.

"What do you say when you hurt someone?" Her mother's voice was hard, and Azula stood mesmerized.

"I didn't mean it. It was an accident."

"You still say you're sorry."

"Oh." Azula ground her toe into the stone, and tried to understand what had happened between parents and what had happened afterward. Everything was supposed to be okay. They had kissed, they had made up, but she still sounded like everything was wrong. "Sorry."

"Go and play, Azula."

So Azula did. She ran through the stone halls, feet skidding as she rounded the corners, not even bothering to slow down, her body accommodating by rolling through the hairpin curves, until she found herself panting and tired and exhausted by the turtle-duck pond.

She splashed into their depths, the ducks squawking with some alarm, and dunked her hot face into the cool water. Once she had wiped the water from her eyes, she saw that there was still a hunk of bread from earlier—something that her mother had left behind.

She flopped, wet and sopping, against the grass, but the words her father had said, the way her mother sounded, cycled through her blood, pounding through her stomach and her heart and her head, until she had to get up again, pacing in tightening circles as she remembered and remembered and remembered.

It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair that Dad was so unhappy, that he wanted Grandfather to see him like she wanted him to see her—but he was working so hard to try to please his father, to impress him—

But if he had the throne—then he'd be happy, and he wouldn't do what he did, and Azula would never have to see her be that weak again, that helpless—and they would all be happy, and they would drink their tea together, like before.

But how could she even begin to help when her father kept himself locked up, trying to find the answer? She kicked savagely at clumps of grass, but no living things hopped from under her prowling feet.

The clucking of the turtle-ducks tugged her attention. They were so small, just chicks, and they clucked plaintively, as if they wanted something, as if they needed something. "Shut up!" she shouted, throwing the hunk of bread at the nearest one, watching as it knocked the chick under the water. But he broke the surface again, shaking his head, wings and feathers all ruffled—and the entire flock scurried from her sight as she raised her hand, even though her fingers were empty.

She flexed her fist, her breath coming in heady gasps as she crouched low to watch them cluster towards the far end of the pond, as far away as they could get away from her.

She caught a glimpse of herself in the water—her cheeks were flushed, skin wet, hair undone and plastered against her forehead. She looked like her mother as she waited for father to let her go. So she fixed her hair, wrapping her ribbon nice and tight. She straightened her clothes, checking her reflection to make sure she looked perfect.

He wanted the throne—well Azula would do what she could to make sure he had it, even if she was only a child.


	7. Mai

_Author's Note: The knife that Azula holds when she tells Sokka to "come and get it" looks very similar to the ones that Mai uses. I headcanon that she stole it from Mai._

* * *

Mai honed her collection of knives every night before bed. It passed the long hours with repetition and focus. It was boring, but it was hers. Few people saw the value of her habit. When she had been little, her parents had frowned at her, but since Princess Azula had encouraged Mai, they had done nothing about it. But she knew what they thought:

Sullen Mai with her silly knives.

But even though it was because of Azula that her parents had let her have this one thing without too much of a fuss, it would also be Azula who would just take one of her knives without asking, as if they belonged to her instead of Mai. She glared at the empty space where her set should have been complete.

She wondered when Azula had taken her knife. She wondered if she still had it. If she had ever used it. If the prodigy had thrown it as straight as Mai could have. If she had had a chance to use it at all.

She wondered why Azula just hadn't asked for Mai's expertise instead of just taking it as her own. If she had just asked, Mai probably would have agreed to whatever scheme Azula had cooked up. Mai didn't like sitting around doing nothing. She most definitely probably would have said yes if Azula had simply asked her to come.

Not for the first time, Mai wondered if she should tell Zuko about the missing knife. He had told her how he had found Azula hurting herself, and how they had to remove most of the sharp objects from her room.

Maybe it would be better if Azula did as she willed with the missing knife—if only she made sure to leave it where Mai could easily find it again and thus keep her collection complete.

Her frown deepened into that expression her mother would have told her to smile away, and she clenched her fist around the knife she held, the one she was supposed to have been cleaning and sharpening.

Just because Mai honed herself into the very best a fire princess could ask for didn't mean that Azula could just brush her aside. It didn't mean she could take the very thing that had always been Mai's, that she needed Mai for, and use it herself.

She shook her head. It wasn't as if she hadn't been expecting it. She had known that Azula would betray her (and Ty Lee) sooner or later. She had just been hoping it would be later.

A knock offered a small distraction, and she said, "Come in." Zuko entered, and she smiled. "Hello, Fire Lord." She reached for him.

"Mai."

He kissed her forehead, and she allowed him to cradle her head against his chest, his chin resting against her dark hair. She closed her eyes, and held him.

There was a time when she had thought she would never see him again. There was a time where she had wondered why he had not come for her. But she tried not to think about those times anymore.

"Do you want to sit on the couch? It's more comfortable," Mai said. Cuddling with Zuko was nice.

"Is it okay if we talk about Azula?" Zuko whispered as they curled in close to each other. His breath tickled the shell of her ear.

"I don't care." Mai rolled a little away from him, muscles tensing. She remembered the empty space, the missing knife.

Zuko let her distance herself, not catching her or pulling her back. He always listened to the way she held her body, seeing the way she moved though everybody else saw a bored teenager with a bad attitude. She liked that about him.

"She wants to restore her honor," Zuko said.

Mai rolled her eyes. "Azula? Honor? Stop, you'll make me laugh. You know how much I hate that."

"That's what Uncle said." He nuzzled her neck, and she could feel his smile against her skin. "I like it when you laugh," he added softly.

"Laughing makes me nauseous," Mai said, but she turned back towards Zuko and let him hold her. "So what are you going to do?"

"I don't know. I don't want to be responsible for anything horrible Azula does if she's gone. But I don't want her to be on her own because I learned that's not always the best path. But I can't accompany her because I can't abandon the Fire Nation—not now that I'm Fire Lord." He sighed.

Mai touched his cheek as she sighed with him, almost not quite believing she was about to indulge whatever scheme Azula was planning. "How does she intend to restore her honor?"

Zuko paused for a moment. He looked away from her as he said, "She said that she'd try to find out what happened to our mom."

Mai was silent, frowning only a little bit. She had not expected him to say something like that, but of course Azula would make a promise like that to Zuko. She had chosen her approach wisely, zeroing in on what would always be Zuko's weakness judging from what had been said on the beach, all those months ago. "Oh."

"I know," Zuko said, voice rising. "She doesn't care about Mom—not like I do. She knew it would be the one thing I couldn't refuse. The one thing I wouldn't want to refuse, especially since my father won't tell me anything."

Was there a weakness Azula didn't know about? Probably not—it was people's strengths she tended to underestimate. Mai made what she hoped sounded like a sympathetic noise.

"Even powerless—" Zuko didn't finish his sentence, just pressed his head against the pillows and squeezed his eyes shut.

"Don't let her get to you," Mai said. "Don't let her win."

"I feel like she's been under my skin since birth, like a shadow I'll never be rid of."

Mai worked herself free from Zuko's arm, stretched, and paced around the couch, worrying her lip with her teeth. He looked up at her, but didn't follow. She wished they had some tea. All this talking was making her thirsty.

Zuko lifted himself on his elbow. "What? I can tell you have something in mind."

Mai kept walking in circles around the couch. She picked up the knife she had been tending to when Zuko came in. It's familiar weight was a comfort in her hand, and she twirled it through her fingers before she finally spoke. "I'll go with Azula. I'm an okay baby-sitter. If you ask anybody but my parents."

Zuko got up, trailed after Mai as she still paced her slow circle. "I can't ask you to do that."

"You didn't ask me. I volunteered. Besides, there's nothing to do here." Mai stopped, and turned towards Zuko. She had seen him less since he had become Fire Lord. Not that she blamed him for that. "I'm bored."

Zuko put his hands on her shoulders. "She would have burned you if Ty Lee hadn't stopped her. So instead she sent you away in the biggest, most secure prison in the Fire Nation. The place where prisoners are sent to be forgotten."

"You didn't forget about me," Mai said.

"That's not the point."

Mai rolled her eyes and shook him from her. "You're missing the point. You don't know what to do about Azula. Azula provided a solution but you can't trust her. You feel guilty about letting her languish when you could have been her if people hadn't helped you. So now you want to help her back, but you can't because you're the Fire Lord. You want your mom back, but you can't justify the decision to leave. And now you're telling me that I can't help you?" She folded her arms and glared at him. "That's not fair, Zuko. I can make my own decisions."

"I know—but it's just that-Azula is not a good friend."

Mai walked away from him, and looked out the window. Evening had already fallen and there wasn't much of a view. She liked it that way. "Azula wasn't always a bad friend." She looked down at the knife in her hand. Azula had encouraged her to learn this skill, and now it glinted from the candlelight in the room. "Maybe I wasn't a good friend either. I'm not an easy person to be around."

"That sounds like something Azula would say." Zuko looked up at her from under the fringe of his hair. "Which means it's not true."

Mai frowned. "It's not like she forced me to be her friend. It wasn't anything dramatic like that."

"Yeah?" He said it softly, tentatively, like if he spoke any louder he'd scare her off, and she wished he wouldn't do that, wished he wasn't so tender—but it was nice that he was. That he cared how she felt about something.

It reminded her of Azula, and she put her blade back down on the table. "It's a boring story. I was bored at school—and then there was Azula."

"Who wasn't boring," Zuko said after she didn't continue, his voice shifting upwards, like he asked a questioned he wanted her to answer, like he was prompting her to go on.

"I'm not going to tell you my whole life story," Mai said. "It doesn't matter."

He went to her, cupped her face in his hands as he pressed another kiss to her forehead, then to her lips. "If you really want to do this, I won't stop you. But be careful. She's still dangerous."

Mai graced Zuko with a small smile. "So am I."

"I know." He grinned back at her—the one Mai had recognized as the one he reserved for her and her alone. It made her feel special.

After Zuko left to attend the unending affairs of state which bored her so much—so much sitting, so much keeping of one's tongue—Mai also departed from her family's home to the royal palace. Everything was so quiet this time of night—the kind of quiet that would make Azula restless. The kind of quiet that would have spurred her to do something.

She got bored as quickly as Mai did.

Mai shook herself, and found her way towards Azula's chambers, knocking while she waited restlessly for Azula to invite her in, which she did with only the slightest of hesitations. She found Azula sitting on the bed in a thin robe, her face twisting when she saw Mai.

"You," Azula said. There was a flash of something like anger before it disappeared, and Azula relaxed, like she was going to pretend she wasn't going to care about anything. "Didn't I say something about never wanting to see your face again? Not that it matters now, I suppose, since everything is different. Perhaps now you can be happy, Mai, with all the changes in your life."

Mai shrugged. "I suppose you could say that."

Azula already climbed out of her bed, her body already adopting an offensive stance. Mai settled into another one to mirror hers.

"You think you could take me in a fair fight?" Azula snarled. "Ty Lee isn't here to protect you."

"How do you expect to fight without your bending?" Mai said. Not that it would unsettle Azula overly much—Mai had seen her fight without her bending before, and not even Aang and his friends had managed to pin her down and defeat her on the Day of Black Sun—but there was nothing Azula prized more than her blue fire and now it was gone and Mai had never felt so pleased about anything before.

"Come to gloat, Mai? How pathetically predictable of you."

"Hardly. Zuko told me about what you requested."

It was only then Azula allowed her offensive stance to relax. Mai did likewise. If people didn't look too closely, they might mistake their conversation as almost civil.

"Of course he did. Zuzu can't make a single decision without first consulting someone for all his talk about being the man he wants to be." Azula pretended to examine her fingernails, as if she didn't care about the topic of conversation.

"You don't know anything about Zuko," Mai said. "You never have. But this isn't about him—it's about you, and your scheme for escaping here. I'm surprised, actually."

Azula scoffed. "Mai is surprised. How remarkable."

"Surprised that you're still here. You should have escaped days ago." Mai took a step towards her, but Azula stood her ground. "The old Azula would have."

Azula smiled. "I know when I'm beaten."

"You're waiting," Mai said, "for Zuko to let you go so that you don't have to worry about an entire army searching for you."

Azula kept smiling. It didn't look good on her. "You never should have turned on me, Mai. We worked so well together because we were such good friends, and you threw it all away." Her eyes flashed with familiar anger.

Mai sighed, her glance sliding away from Azula as she took in the nearly empty room. She imagined herself in a room like this, and her flesh crawled in that way where she wanted to peel it from her bones. If Azula wasn't crazy before—well being stuck here would definitely finish the job. No wonder she was desperate to get away. Mai hated that she understood how she felt. "Then you'll be thrilled to know that I advised Zuko to accept your offer."

Azula's smile slipped for the first time—and she schooled her face so that it did not betray anything of her thoughts to Mai. "Of course you did, Mai. Ever since our little incident at the Boiling Rock, you probably want me as far away from you as possible, since we're not friends anymore."

Mai forced herself to meet Azula's face, to keep contact with her eyes. "I told him to accept as long as I accompanied you on this mission to supposedly restore you honor."

"So you're to be my babysitter." Azula's voice soured and she paced away from Mai in the familiar corkscrew spirals. "I see."

Mai glanced around the room, hopefully not obviously enough for Azula to pick up on it. She didn't see her missing knife, but knowing Azula, it was probably hidden in her sleeves somewhere.

Typical.

"You're just loving this aren't you?" Azula said, sitting down on the bed, smoothing her hair with her hands. "Seeing me like this. Humiliated."

"No." Mai opened the door to leave. "I don't feel anything, as you've constantly reminded me."

"You just feel for Zuko then." Azula pursed her lips, and pitched her voice lower and rougher so that it sounded something like Mai's. "I love Zuko more than I fear you." In her usual tone, she added, "So I guess you do feel something."

Mai went to leave, not even pausing as she let the door close behind her. "You've got me all figured out. Congratulations."

If Azula had more to say, she did not linger to hear it. She went to the gardens, where she and Azula and Ty Lee had played when they were little. It was quiet here, and she stood at the pond, looking at her reflection in the water. The wind rippled the water, distorting her image.

Being with Azula again had been unpleasant, but she could probably bear it for Zuko's sake. She knew she would regret volunteering for the mission sooner or later-probably sooner-but she was alright with that.

She had done many things she knew she would regret, and things had turned out alright in the end.

This would too, no matter what happened to Azula.


	8. Interlude: Schoolyard Politics

_I know that I have been putting the flashbacks up on Thursday with the "present" story posting on Friday, but my I am going out of state for my brother's wedding. This unfortunately means that there is no "present" section of the story posting tomorrow. There just wasn't enough time with getting ready to leave and working full time. Apologies to all! I'd also like to take this moment to thank those who are reading and commenting. You are much appreciated!_

* * *

The school administration was trying to get Mai to play outside with the other children.

"The only reason I'm here is because my parents want me to be here," Mai said to the adult who was the most persistent and had not given up. "Not because I want to have fun."

It was true. This school was a pit stop for her father's political career—and she went where her parents told her to go because life was easier when they were happy.

She probably wouldn't even be here in a year.

"That doesn't mean you shouldn't have friends."

Mai yawned. "I don't want friends."

"Fine. Suit yourself." And then they, too, left Mai leaning against a wall, with her arms folded and black ribbons in her shiny, black hair.

Other students showed off their firebending skills. They thought it made them powerful, better than her. Their mini political play bored her.

One of the older students swaggered up to her, face flushed from the heat and from the fire and probably from embarrassment at their generic existence. Mai frowned, her lips pulled down low and unhappy. If she did what her parents asked of her in their numerous letters, she would mingle with this student. She would ask how she was. She would learn her name. She would learn who her parents were, and how much power they had. She would make nice and be friends, so that her parents could become friends with her parents, and then those friendships would help them make even more powerful friendships until they found themselves the governor of their very own Earth Kingdom colony one day.

Wow. So exciting.

This girl would probably take her shopping or ask what her favorite color was or something stupid like that.

This girl made her nauseous. The girl's smile made her nauseous. The mere idea of having to socialize with her made her nauseous.

The girl was sickness embodied.

Mai hated her immediately, so when the girl said hello, Mai ignored her until she went away—though she did shoot a very dirty look over her shoulder as she did.

No doubt she would badmouth Mai to her numerous friends.

Mai didn't care about that, though.

However, when Mai saw Azula, the girl from earlier, enter the square with Ty Lee beside her, still dressed in circus pink, Mai found herself interested, and she took a few steps in their direction. Ty Lee's garb would do for now—it was still hot and it was summer—but when the cooler weather set in, she'd need something more. She wondered if Azula would take care of that too, the same way she seemed to take care of everything that tried to get in her way.

She always got her way, in the end.

Mai respected that.

Azula could move the wills of everyone, even those who passed her off as some brat-faced kid (royalty or no) because parents sent their kids to learn—not to reign court. But here, Azula may as well have been the Firelord, and she wasn't even in the line for succession. She'd never be Firelord—not unless there were some unfortunate deaths in the family.

Mai couldn't stop looking at her, and her feet wouldn't stop taking a meandering path towards her.

Ty Lee's long braid was looped over her shoulder—but no one even dared tug it. Nobody made a snide comment about her poor apparel.

No one spoke to them unless they desired it. And if a girl did brush up to them, all sweetness and flattering lips to please spare a moment of their time, they ignored her if they desired, and no one told them to play nice.

The letters from home burned hot reminders into her skin. Her parents would be thrilled if they knew that Azula was here. They would ask Mai to be one of those simpering girls. They would tell Mai to be whoever she needed to be in order to befriend Azula. A connection to the royal family—well, it wasn't to be imagined, not even they had dared to dream that high.

If only Azula were somehow less—more like a sputtering candle flame struggling at the last moment in its pool of wick and wax, then Mai could turn her back and not look behind her, and wonder what if they could be friends, really friends.

Why couldn't this girl have been someone else, anybody else? Someone her parents would have scorned with a curl of their lips, someone whom they would tell Mai was not worth her time?

But a girl like that wouldn't be able to do what Azula could. People parted like water before he. They held their breath around her.

Someone pushed into Mai from behind, a heavy weight against her thin shoulder blades, and she stumbled to her knees, scraping them against the harsh stone.

"Watch it if you can't handle the heat," the girl who bumped her said, fire playing from her fists.

Mai would like to see her talk so big without her bending. "Is that the best you could come up with?" She climbed to her feet, brushing the dust from her dark clothes. She folded her arms, stared down her long nose that had been the targets of taunts and jokes by her peers.

The girl looked around, her face wide, splitting with a too-tight smile that wanted so hard to be a snarl—or a scowl. She'd probably been reprimanded before about causing trouble, which was good for Mai, who never, ever caused trouble. "Says the person who can't even bend. What do you think you're doing here, getting in the way?"

Mai shrugged, about to go, when she brushed into Azula, whom she had not seen coming their way. Ty Lee rested her elbow on Azula's shoulder, leaning against her casually as if she were a wall instead of a person. Azula's hip pushed against Ty Lee's-only a knife would have been able to slice them apart, so thickly were they entwined together. Azula played with Ty Lee's long braid as if she were bored. Still, they both had smiles laid on slick and pretty, like they weren't real.

Mai worked her jaw, trying to decide if she wanted to apologize for slighting someone of the royal family or if she wanted to just ignore them.

"I don't think you fire's hot enough to burn flesh," Azula said. "What do you think, Ty Lee? Do you think she has what it takes?" Fire blossomed from her own hand, the one that was closest to Ty Lee, who did not even shrink away, as if she had nothing to fear.

"You think I'm scared of you," the girl said, she stood taller, fire still jetting from her fists. "You think because you're the daughter of a prince I should care about you or what you think? You're nobody special-the only reason you're here is because of who your father's father is. You don't know what it means to work for anything. You're just lucky."

Azula slipped free of Ty Lee's arm and circled the girl while Ty Lee flitted lightly around in the opposite direction, long braid swinging, fingers already curving inwards, knuckles ready to jab sharp and true. Mai sensed the gap the two girls made in their vulture-circle, and easily fell in step with them.

"You're right of course," Azula said. "I did come here because I am the daughter of a prince. Do you think it's easy to keep a throne? Do you think it takes a soft hand?" Her eyes widened as she closed in on the girl. "Would you like to find out just how hard I've worked to be good at what I do?" Here she paused directly in front of the girl, Ty Lee on her left, Mai on her right.

The girl hesitated for a moment. "You think she's a friend," she said, gazing at Ty Lee. "She's not. She'll never really be friends with you. People like her—they don't know how to be friends. She'll use you. She'll throw you away and move on when she's done with you."

"Are you saying you want to be our friend too?" Ty Lee smiled at her.

"No, that's not what she's saying," Azula said. "Though you're right about one thing. She's so envious that she was passed over by me when I chose my friends." She stepped closer to the girl. "Isn't that right?"

Mai had to hand it to the girl for not falling back, for standing up as tall as she could and looking down on Azula because Azula was short and small and could make you feel as useless and insignificant as a broken pair of chopsticks. "That's not what I said."

"But that's what you meant." Then Azula laughed, swinging away from the girl without so much as looking back. "Come along, girls."

A look of shock, and maybe hunger flickered over the girl's face as she started after Azula, while Mai looked hard at her shoes. Royalty always did this—they humiliated people, they put them in their place, and then they offered them a kindness to make them forget, to make them hungrier. Mai should not be surprised. She should not be hurt. What did she care for Azula, when everything that had been said was probably true. And yet—

Azula's cut the air with shrill sharpness. "Not you, Eun-jae. I thought it would be obvious I wasn't talking to you. Come along, gloomy girl, I don't like to ask twice."

Mai's head jerked up, interest pricking her skin. Azula strode back through the crowd that had gathered, Ty Lee still at her side. Eun-jae blushed, stamped her feet, and scorched the earth with her humiliation.

Mai didn't let her hesitation take her again, but followed swiftly after the two girls—Azula all in military red, Ty Lee in pink, and she herself in grey.


	9. The Difference Between Us

After leaving Azula, Mai went to Ty Lee's chambers to tell her what she had decided. Ty Lee was still dressed in her Kyoshi outfit, and she stood by the window drinking licorice tea. The people were still celebrating Zuko's coronation, and there was the pink and green spray of fireworks flashing momentarily across her cheeks.

"Mai!" Ty Lee said, setting down her tea and running towards her, throwing her arms around her.

Mai waited patiently for Ty Lee to finish.

"What are you doing here? Why aren't you with Zuko?"

Mai folded her arms. "Have you heard about Azula's latest scheme?"

"Is she scheming?" Ty Lee said. "When I went to visit her she seemed very-" she paused as she raised her fluttering eyes towards the ceiling-"lost. Desperate, I suppose would be a good word, but also depressed or maybe even angry. But honestly, when is Azula not angry about something? But I hadn't realized she was planning anything." She straightened and looked at Mai, smiling expectantly. "What's going on?"

Mai sighed. Of course Ty Lee had gone to visit Azula when she should be leaving her alone. She wished she could say that she didn't understand what Ty Lee saw in Azula, but she did understand. In fact, she understood too well. Sometimes, she even missed the Azula she thought she had known when she had been just a child, when Azula had pretended to be kind. "She told Zuko that she wanted to restore her honor."

Ty Lee didn't wait for Mai to finish before bursting out with laughter. "But Azula doesn't believe in honor. I know Zuko didn't fall for that."

"He didn't," Mai said, grumpy. "But she also said she would look for his mother, and he can't do it himself obviously. No one else knows what happened on the night of her disappearance except for her and Ozai, who isn't telling Zuko anything. I told him to take her up on it as long as I went along too."

Ty Lee gasped, all her laughter gone. She put her hands over her mouth as she took several steps back, braid swaying behind her shoulders. The Kyoshi face paint did little to disguise Ty Lee's reactions. Mai saw her widened eyes and her puckered frown. She was upset. Or as upset as Ty Lee ever could be.

Mai sighed as she waited for the lecture.

"I don't understand," Ty Lee said. "I don't understand any of this! Since when has Azula been willing to share about anything? What answers does Zuko expect her to give?"

"She's not, and he's not," Mai said. "But it's either that or she'll just leave on her own. And that would be even worse. I'm surprised she hasn't left already."

"But then why would you volunteer to go? She put us in prison. She was going to burn you! She was going to leave us to rot!" The shrillness of her voice pierced Mai's ear, and she held her head in her gloved hand as she flinched. "If anybody should be volunteering to go, it should be me!"

"Don't be so dramatic," Mai said. "She put you in prison, too, remember."

"Of course I remember!" Ty Lee palmed her eyes, which Mai saw were beginning to wet. She smeared her red and white makeup so that flashes of skin smudged through. "I thought about it every day! I tried to think if there was anything that I could have done differently but there wasn't." Ty Lee stalked to the window where she had left her tea and gulped at it. "Azula doesn't believe in honor. Or if she does, she doesn't care. She lies and cheats all the time. If you go, she'll turn on you again."

The Kyoshi colors blurred together was even more distasteful so Mai turned her gaze towards the pale, bland walls, and sighed. "I don't know why you're so upset."

"Because I should be the one going!" Ty Lee said as she went back to Mai, gripping her wrists with her hands. "I can handle her. I've proved that I can. You know that I can."

Mai refused to look at the mess Ty Lee's face had become. "You shouldn't be the one going," Mai said.

"Why not?" Ty Lee released Mai's hands and folded her arms across her chest, her boots tapping a rhythm against the heavily carpeted floor.

"Because you're half in love with her. You always have been," Mai said. "Though I can't imagine why after everything. She doesn't deserve you."

Ty Lee stepped forward so that Mai was forced to step back until she was pressed against the wall under Ty Lee's shadow as she loomed over her. Ty Lee had her hands on her waist, as she always did on those rare moments when she was all righteous indignation about something. "Excuse me? Half in love with her? I know what she is and what she does. When I first saw her after I joined the circus, she came to see my show so that she could set the net on fire and cause a stampede. Not that she did any of these things herself, of course, she just ordered them to be done. But, even though I was terrified, even though sweat was pouring into my eyes because of the heat, I was still flattered that she had come to me first. She hadn't come to you, the one who was always bored, always wanting something to do, but to me. That means something! That has to. If anything, Azula is half in love with me!"

Ty Lee was so close that her gaze was unavoidable. Mai could see every strand of flyaway hair that had escaped her braid. Mai couldn't help herself, and she began to count each hair to distract herself from the intensity that Ty Lee was exuding in every manner of her bearing, in very word that she spoke. Mai wondered what Azula would have threatened her with if she hadn't correctly anticipated that Mai would be only too glad to leave Omashu.

But then the unbearable tower of will that Ty Lee had become melted as she hid her face in the hollow of Mai's neck. She was crying as she said, "Do you know how special that made me feel?"

Mai patted her shoulder awkwardly with one hand. "There. There." Of course she knew how special Azula could make people feel, with her well chosen words and actions. But they were lies, they were always lies. Azula didn't know how to love anybody.

"Don't you know?" Ty Lee insisted, her words coming out muffled and blurred by the fact she was still hiding her face.

Mai looked away, looked at the wall with its fire emblemed tapestry hanging crooked. Someone should probably fix that. "You were closer than me all the way in Omashu. There's nothing special about that. That's the only reason she came to you first."

"Why do you always have to be so mean?" Ty Lee raised her head sniffling. Her Kyoshi Warrior paint was smeared, unsalvageable. Looking distinctly unpleasant as she continued to cry.

Mai never knew what to do with people's tears, and Ty Lee was still too close for her to think properly. "I don't understand what any of this has to do with my decision to go with Azula."

"She was going to burn you, Mai." Ty Lee lifted her hand to Mai's face, pad of her thumb tracing the tender flesh under her left eye. "Or worse."

Mai caught Ty Lee's wrist, and pulled it down so that she held it in the small space between their bodies. "She was going to try." She bent her head, and Ty Lee bent hers at the same time so their foreheads touched each other. "I can take care of myself." Though, she still wasn't sure what would have happened if Ty Lee hadn't intervened, if her knife had been aiming for flesh, or simply to catch Azula's clothes in the wood that they might try to escape. Her mouth dried, and she swallowed.

"I know you can, but I worry," Ty Lee whispered. "Azula would have killed you."

Or she would have killed Azula, maybe. Mai shifted against the wall. For a long time, until Azula had tried to kill the Avatar, she had thought Azula would not be able to kill someone. But then, she had done what she did to Aang, and then to Zuko. Her mouth twitched against her teeth as she remembered the scar Zuko bore against his chest, and once more, she was thankful for Katara's presence, because she had saved him. And the only thing Azula had done was give him another scar. Mai had to keep reminding herself that Azula was powerless now, but it was hard to remember.

Ty Lee hugged herself—hinting, maybe, that Mai should be the one to do so instead of letting her do all the comforting. "See, I understand, Mai. I'm not some lovesick girl."

Like there was anything to say to that.

Ty Lee glared at her—the same glare she'd given everyone on Ember Island. The one that had even stopped Azula's cold laughter. Mai had thought about that often, when they had been in the prison. Maybe Ty Lee was the only one who had ever been able to stop Azula, drawing lines in the sand that she'd keep Azula from crossing again and again even if she had to knock her down to do it. But that wasn't right either because Ty Lee had never told Azula _no_ in the long course of their friendship, not even once before.

It didn't make sense. Mai refused to go down a drainage pipe on the drill but Ty Lee—clean Ty Lee, beautiful Ty Lee, Ty Lee smelling like cinnamon—had thrown herself after their quarry. And it wasn't like Azula had punished Mai for ignoring her order (too chastised by their defeat, possibly), but if anyone had been the one who had kept pushing and pushing against Azula multiple times it had been Mai, not Ty Lee. Azula shouldn't have been surprised that it was Mai who had betrayed her first. Ty Lee had always gone along with everything—her face may have looked like her six other sisters, but she mirrored Azula in every other way that mattered, in every choice, in every action—except the very last one, the only one that had really mattered after all.

The only reason it was hard for Mai to breathe in that moment was because Ty Lee was still standing too close to her, not because Ty Lee would let Azula do anything she wanted, would go along with whatever crazy scheme she came up with—except for the one that would have hurt Mai. Against all odds, Mai was the line that Ty Lee would never let Azula cross. The realization was overwhelming. "Your face is gross," Mai said. "Why do you wear that stuff?"

Ty Lee shrugged, made the i-don't-know sound in her throat.

Mai sighed as she fumbled for the handkerchief that she kept in her sleeve. She brought it to Ty Lee's face. Obediently, Ty Lee closed her eyes, and Mai wiped the red and white paint from her skin.

"Wait," Ty Lee said, and Mai stopped. "I need to take this off." Her fingers fumbled with her thick green-and-gold armor.

"This was so uncomfortable," Mai said, assisting her. "I don't know why you'd ever want to join them."

"No, I don't suppose you would." Ty Lee slipped it over her head so that she was simply wearing her green kimono, which flowed over her in loose folds. There were sweat stains along her chest and her sides.

"Are you done?" At Ty Lee's nod, Mai renewed her attempts at cleaning her face. For being so skilled throwing a dagger, her fingers were strangely clumsy when it came to cleaning makeup off. It ran, bleeding over Ty Lee's skin, staining Mai's fingers and the rag and everything else.

With her fingertips, she tipped Ty Lee's chin up and to the side. It was then, when it was impossible for their eyes to meet so focused was Mai on cleaning the last traces of white from her, that Ty Lee said, "Maybe it would be okay for us three to be together again. Just like old times."

"Don't feel obligated to accompany us," Mai said. "I'm sure your sisters wouldn't want to lose their newest recruit."

Ty Lee shrugged. "They'll understand."

Mai rolled her eyes.

"You're always seeing things so negatively," Ty Lee said. Why can't you just believe me when I say that they'll understand? They appreciate me. I've taught them things they've never known before. And I can teach them even more."

"Nobody forgets losing to the Fire Nation. Nobody forgives being sent to prison. Nobody makes room for the person who did that." Mai turned Ty Lee's face to the other side. "Whatever your position is with the Kyoshi Warriors now—it's more complicated than you think it is. Once they have nothing to learn from you, they'll leave you behind. They won't forgive you. They won't forgive any of us." She knew, because she didn't think she could ever forgive Azula, and together the three of them had done worse to the Kyoshi warriors than what Azula had done to them.

Ty Lee held fast to Mai's wrist, pressed her hand to her cheek as her eyes closed. "Don't say that," Ty Lee said, her breath tickling the delicate skin of Mai's wrist. "Please don't say that."

"I'll keep it to myself next time." Mai shook her head. "I don't understand. You said you didn't want to be part of a set. Then you join the Kyoshi Warriors? They dress the same. Their faces are the same. I don't get it."

"You're too used to being alone. Of course you wouldn't understand."

"I was with you and Azula. I'm with Zuko now. I'm a big sister. I'm not alone."

"You're too used waiting for people to leave you. First your parents? Then Zuko? Then Azula?" Ty Lee shifted so that she was able to press herself closer to Mai, her hands resting on her shoulders. "Then…me? You knew I would have to return with them to Kyoshi Island eventually. It was just a matter of when. You were just trying to leave first by going with Azula and leaving me behind."

Mai rested her head against the wall, her eyes closed. She let the dirty rag drop from her fingers to the floor, and she didn't have the energy to argue with Ty Lee anymore. "What do you want from me?"

"I want you to stay here with Zuko," Ty Lee said. "I want you to be happy. I'll go with Azula by myself."

"I'm never happy," Mai said. "But I'm not staying behind. It's the best way that I can help Zuko find his mother."

Ty Lee stood on tiptoes so that she could press a kiss to Mai's cheek. "Fine, since I can't convince you to stay here. We'll both go. It's decided-no takebacks."

Mai blushed from Ty Lee's kiss, but she nodded. "Then you go back to Kyoshi Island, and I'll come back here." She looked at Ty Lee, who had taken her hand. "Don't cry," Mai said. "Nothing's even happened yet. You're so emotional."

"I can't help it," Ty Lee said. "I already miss you. I already feel like something terrible is going to happen, and we'll never see each other again. I couldn't bear for that to happen, for something to happen to us."

"The only way we won't see each other is if you don't visit," Mai said. She didn't say the other thing that she was thinking, that Azula could kill one or both of them before they were through, before either one of them could return to their homes. "You're getting ahead of yourself. We still have the whole journey ahead of us, wherever it may take us." Or however it might end.

"I can't believe you were going to do this alone," Ty Lee said. "She hurt us both. It's only right we heal together."

Mai rolled her eyes, but allowed herself to be hugged one last time as she left Ty Lee's chamber and returned to her own home. She didn't care about healing, like Ty Lee did. She didn't think it was possible to heal from what Azula had done to them. It would just be a scar, an invisible scar somewhere inside of her. Just something else to make her aura dirty and dingy.

She bit her lip as she leaned over Tom-Tom's cradle. He was sleeping, with his eyes wrinkled shut.

It felt fitting that the three of them would do this one last thing together, but it also felt wrong. They had been together for too long already, and they needed to make new friends, forge new bonds.

Maybe that was what Ty Lee had meant when she had tried to explain why she had joined the Kyoshi Warriors.

And yet here they were, forming the same pattern after it had been broken, instead of getting on with their lives.

She should speak with Zuko. She should ask that the arrangements be made in secret so that Ty Lee would not be able to come, that she would have no choice but to go with the Kyoshi Warriors to their island, and make her new life without Azula's shadow.

But after speaking with Ty Lee, she knew that she didn't want to do this thing by herself. Maybe it was because she was still afraid of Azula, or maybe it was because she wasn't ready for Ty Lee to leave for Kyoshi Island-that she would miss Ty Lee so much when she was gone. Maybe she wasn't ready for their lives to change completely.

At least this way, they would be able to say goodbye to their old lives, to the people in their past, and once they had finished this journey, they could start new, with no regrets, no questions, no what ifs.

Or they could fall into the same habit of each other, and never truly break free. She could see that happening too.

Mai closed her eyes. "What do you think, Tom-Tom?" she whispered.

But he just slept, and eventually Mai did the same.


	10. Interlude: Come and Get It

It didn't take long for Azula to establish a status quo at the academy: there was her, there were her friends, Mai and Ty Lee, and then there was everybody else who didn't matter. Nobody said anything about them anymore. Nobody rolled their eyes. Nobody looked at them. Nobody touched them, and anyone who tried? Got burned-not literally though sometimes Azula thought about it. The other girls at school knew their place, and they normally didn't try to upset the balance that Azula had established.

Which was why it was such a surprise when Eun-jae told them they could not study at the table of their choice because she had been there first. She refused to move, staring at her parchment and her ink that was still glossy and wet, pretending to review what she had written even as she snuck glances at the three of them. A cup of tea was turning cold beside her.

Azula curled the back of her hand against her waist. "What exactly do you mean by that?"

Ty Lee danced around Eun-jae. "It's just the most lovely table! So why shouldn't Azula not be able to sit there?"

Azula snapped her fingers and Ty Lee fell silent. "Can we possibly give Eun-jae time to answer my question before we praise the admirable attributes of the table?"

Ty Lee immediately flitted back to her side. "I'm sorry, Azula."

Eun-jae stared between the three of them. "Seriously? You're just going to do whatever she tells you? Like you're her pet?"

"Azula helped me," Ty Lee said. "What kind of person would I be if I wasn't her friend? Why that'd be unkind or unpleasant or-"

"Ungrateful?" Mai said in her flat voice as she glanced sideways at Azula.

"Yes! That's the word I'm looking for," Ty Lee said, smiling.

Azula strode closer towards Eun-jae, looming over her even though she was smaller by a head than the other girl. "As I recall, you were one of the students who didn't want Ty Lee or Mai around, weren't you? You called them both names, but now that they're with me, you're just so concerned for their wellbeing." She folded her arms, tutted her tongue, and sighed. "It's almost as if you want to their friend, but that would be impossible." Azula slung her arm around Ty Lee's shoulder as she repositioned her long braid so that it wasn't in her way. "What do you think about that, Ty lee?"

"I think you and Mai have been the nicest girls to me. I've never felt so welcomed." Ty Lee smiled at Eun-jae. "Did you want to be our friend too, Eun-jae?"

"Don't bother her with a question like that. Of course she doesn't want to be friends with us." Azula's voice was sharp. "She doesn't like me." In a stage whisper, Azula added, "She's jealous."

Ty Lee lifted herself on her tiptoes. "But who wouldn't be jealous of you, Azula? You're perfect."

"I know I am—and the sooner other people learn that the better." Azula turned towards Mai who had remained silent and still throughout the exchange, her gaze sharp as the knife that glistened from her sleeve. "But what does Mai think of all this?"

"I don't care," Mai said. "She's probably one of those stupid girls who want what they can't have."

Eun-jae pushed herself to her feet, fists clenched at her side, smoking as she barely contained fire that wanted to lash out. Azula didn't even bother dropping into an offensive stance as she waited for Eun-jae to throw the first blow. After all, the only story people cared about was the one who started it and the one who finished it.

"You think you're all that," Eun-jae hissed, "but you're the same as everyone else here—eight years old, lonely for Mom and Dad, and thinks she's better than she probably is."

Azula smiled at her. "Challenge me to an Agni Kai then. And then we'll see how better than you I really am."

Mai blinked, eyes sliding to glare at Azula, even as Ty Lee quivered with barely sustained laughter at the look on Eun-jae's face.

"Agni Kai?" Eun-jae said. "Over a school room quarrel? How dare you."

"You were the one who said I wasn't as good as I thought I was," Azula said. "You were the one that made it a matter of honor—after all, why would I dishonor myself with falsehoods of my own ability? You questioned my honor so why don't you do the right thing and challenge it as well?" Azula leaned in close, whispering in her ear. "Don't worry—you needn't fear I'll reject your challenge. I'll accept." She smiled at her, a smile that was nothing but teeth.

"You're crazy," Eun-jae said. "Nobody fights an Agni Kai over something like this. Nobody does it when they're just kids."

Azula inspected her nails. "I thought you were a lot of things, Eun-jae, but not a coward."

"I'm not scared!" Eun-jae shouted, rushing to her feet.

"Then why don't you prove it." Azula sang the words as she stepped onto the table, walked over Eun-jae's parchment and ink, and knocked over the half empty cup of tea so that it spilled, running and ruining Eun-jae's work. Azula towered over her. "Challenge me."

Eun-jae huffed and puffed her indignation but said nothing, even though her hands gripped the ruined tatters of her parchment, smearing her skin with its ink. Then Azula swung away, dropping lightly down to the floor as she called for Ty Lee and Mai. They swaggered from the room. Azula counted the seconds as she waited for Eun-jae to change her mind.

"Fine," Eun-jae called, her voice sullen and reluctant. "Azula, I challenge you."

Azula paused, cupped her hand over her ear, and turned to Mai. "Did you hear someone?"

Mai slid her glance over to Eun-jae, and shook her head.

"Ty Lee?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about, Azula." Ty Lee giggled behind her hand. "I didn't hear anything."

Eun-jae fairly shouted it then—loud enough to cause the other students to pause from their studies. Loud enough to reveal the tremor in her voice. "Azula, I challenge you to an Agni Kai."

"And I accept," Azula said. "Sundown. Don't be late. I hate waiting."

After they retired to their quarters, Azula flung herself on the bed and counted the moments until it would be time to face Eun-jae. Her room smelled faintly like cinnamon from the pressed fire lily petals that Li and Lo had sent to her, so that she would always have something to remind her of home. She had stuffed the gift under her bed. What did she care about such things?

"You're not going to practice?" Mai said, throwing her knife at a board she'd hung on the wall. It was peppered with holes, some near the center target, but most falling wide the mark. This one was no exception.

"I'm already prepared," Azula said as she yawned. "I breathe fire. It's in me and part of me. Those other girls try to use it like a tool because they don't understand anything." Azula opened one eye. "I wouldn't expect you to understand either."

Mai looked down at her fingers, then at the knife stuck in the target, still so wide its mark. She retrieved it, and began to play with it—twirling it through her fingers, learning its weight, the way it moved in her palm.

Azula smiled. Mai caught on so fast. She'd better watch out, Azula supposed, one day. These girls weren't hungry enough to bite the hand that fed them—not yet, at least.

Ty Lee sprawled on the bed beside her. "Forgive me, Azula, because I'm not a firebender and I just don't know much about Ani Kais. But don't they end when someone inflicts the first burn? So where are you going to do it?"

"Someplace she won't soon forget. She's always—" Azula let the sentence dangle. She hated Eun-jae. Hated her face, the way she was always challenging her, instead of just letting her be like everyone else had learned to do.

Ty Lee smiled at her. "Always talking too much? Always saying mean things?" There was something in her eyes that gave Azula pause. Ty Lee wanted to live through her. She couldn't hurt Eun-jae herself-at least not without getting in big trouble-but she could imagine all the terrible things that Azula could do to her.

Mai sighed. "I don't get why you care about her, Azula. It's not like she's ever insulted you." Mai stooped to pick up her knife, which she had fumbled and dropped.

"Because I'm not a big blah like you," Azula said easily. "I don't like it when people think they're better than me when they're not. Besides, it's simple tactics. Eun-jae used to the be most popular girl in school. Take her down, and our position as the top girls will be assured forever. And besides, a story like this, two girls dueling an Agni Kai? They won't stop talking about it. Doesn't that sound like fun?"

On cue, Ty Lee spoke. "That sounds amazing, Azula! I've never been popular before."

Mai was a big downer, as usual. "I don't know about fun. Maybe useful. It'd be fun telling those other girls what to do. Stop talking about stupid things. Stop laughing so loud."

"See," Azula said as she slid off the bed and slung her arms around them. Ty Lee hugged her close but Mai let her arms stay still by her side. "You're beginning to think like me now."

Sunset came soon and, just as the first ribbons of pink spun itself across the sky, Azula, flanked by her girls, went to the meeting place.

"Do you think she'll actually come?" Mai said, twirling her knife. Azula counted fifty rotations before she dropped it. She was already getting better.

"Of course she will," Azula said. "She has too much to risk if she doesn't show because I'll call her coward and nobody will respect her. She'll lose she comes I'll win—and she'll still lose everything. It's perfect."

"Just like you," Ty Lee said in a lilting sing-song.

Azula smiled.

To the side, Mai rolled her eyes, and flung her knife into the trunk of a tree. Azula considered mentioning that Mai could perhaps show a little more enthusiasm—but that was her way. Loyalty was all that mattered. Being happy about it wasn't entirely necessary. That was what Ty Lee was for.

"So there you are," Eun-jae said behind her.

Azula tried to put on the bored inflection that Mai had perfected so well. "You sound surprised. Disappointed?"

Eun-jae scoffed. "Of course not. I'm not one to duck from a challenge."

Azula paced some distance away with Mai and Ty Lee trailing after her. With her back toward Eun-jae, she removed her shoulder covering, a little early perhaps, and draped it around around Ty Lee's shoulder—who was shivering in the cool evening air. Then she knelt and heard Eun-jae follow suit.

"Whoever burns the other first," Eun-jae said.

"You think that I don't know the rules? Enough talk." Azula rose to her feet and dropped into an offensive stance, grounding her root. She didn't open with fire, but struck Eun-jae's mouth as she approached.

Eun-jae didn't duck in time, and she took it hard enough to fall to her knees. She spat blood, and it stained the grass.

"I wasn't even using fire that time," Azula said. "You're not doing a good job at impressing me. I was at least hoping for a real challenge."

Eun-jae retaliated with fire from her foot as she swung her legs around to ward Azula away, but she danced out of reach of the flames. Eun-jae tried to move in closer, her body clumsily executing martial arts that Azula had trained to master since she was small.

Azula flowed away, twisting around so that she kept Eun-jae always off balance as she tried to follow her instead of anticipating her moves.

Finally, Eun-jae stopped, her breath coming in heaving pants that would never reach her stomach to stoke the fire resting within. "You haven't returned my fire with fire. What kind of Agni Kai are you fighting?"

Azula laughed. "The one that will embarrass and humiliate you the most." Azula darted in close, kneeing Eun-jae in the stomach. She pushed her backwards with one foot so that she sprawled heavily to the ground, wind knocked out of her. Azula stepped back, guiding her breath into her stomach with a flat, downward motion of her hand, as she waited for Eun-jae to climb back to her feet.

"You're never going to win if you keep fighting that way." Eun-jae gasped for breath as she tried to find her balance. "You have to burn me, not knock me on my back."

"That doesn't mean we can't have a little bit of fun first," Azula said. "Look at you. Already so tired. Barely able to breathe." Her voice hardened. "Didn't anyone ever tell you that a firebender's power comes from the breath?" And, for the first time, Azula unleashed a powerful burst of fire towards Eun-jae's stupid, terrified face.

Eun-jae ducked clumsily beneath the blow and struck out with her foot as she rolled away. Azula dispelled it with a circular motion of her arms, then aimed to scorch the ground beneath Eun-jae's feet as she scrambled backwards. In her attempt to get away, she tripped and sprawled flat on her face.

Azula sprang, lithe as a cat, and crawled on top of her back so that she could grab her by the hair and flip her over. She pinned her wrists to the ground with her feet, her knees digging into the fleshy, tender bits of Eun-jae's shoulder, while her left fist pushed down hard against her sternum. "You're trapped and have nowhere to go, nothing left," Azula said, flattening her hand so that she could press down with more leverage. Her fingertips brushed the delicate structure of the girl's clavicle leading up to her neck, wet with sweat and smoke and ash. "Are you scared of me yet?"

Eun-jae stuck her chin out as well as she could, smothered as she was by Azula's weight. She squirmed as she tried to throw Azula off. "Why don't you just finish it!"

"Don't worry—I will," Azula said. "I'm just savoring the moment." Eun-jae's body went limp beneath her, all struggle snuffed out. Pathetic. Azula could see the tremor of a pulse rabbiting softly under her skin, the earth of her body shaking and quivering like a nervous volcano. Maybe she should burn her there, right there, at the soft yield of her throat where she'd never be able to hide it, no matter how hard she tried.

"You can't do it," Eun-jae whispered. "You might be better than me, but you can't finish what you start."

Azula shook her. "Shut up! You're defeated!"

Eun-jae buttoned up her lips and stared up at the darkening sky. "Not until you finish it, I'm not."

"I guess anywhere will do. It's not like I care about you one way or another." Azula raised her right hand, flames blossoming from her palm. She looked around to see if Mai and Ty Lee were watching. Mae was leaning against a tree—almost smiling, her knife clutched in her hand as she leaned forward. Ty Lee? She didn't see Ty Lee. She must be behind her, for a better view. Maybe she should do what Ty Lee suggested-Eun-jae talked too much, and she said annoying things.

Eun-jae smiled through her bloody split lip. "Anywhere? You can't do it. You talk big, but you're still just a kid."

The flame erupted hotter and higher, and Azula hissed, "I'll show you what I am." Why couldn't she decide? Why couldn't she do it? Something held her back, poisoned her with indecision. She hadn't imagined the way Eun-jae would still squirm, the way she could feel her heart beat against her hand. The way her eyes screwed up as her fire burned brighter and brighter. Her father would shake his head if he could see her now, he would turn away from her to read the latest news of the war, he would say he was too busy to be bothered with someone who would only disappoint him, who would only embarrass him. The flame grew hotter with the faintest shimmer of its blue heart and she aimed the light toward Eun-jae's face.

Then huge hands grabbed her by the shoulders, bending her arm back so that her fire was snuffed out, and they dragged her from Eun-jae's prone body.

Azula shrieked, her legs kicking futilely at her captor's knees. Eun-jae breathed and rolled away, her face relaxing into an open mouthed smile when she saw that she had been rescued, while Mai stood suddenly still, slipping her knife into her sleeve as she stared at Ty Lee. Ty Lee flitted to Mai, knuckles to her mouth as her eyes darted side to side as Azula was led away, suffering a scolding from the administrators who had broken up the fight.

It was awful.

Ursa came the next day—looking regal in face and bearing, as if she were Fire Lady and maybe she should be, Azula thought, scowling. Ursa discussed the "unfortunate" incident with the head administrators, though she could spare no glance for Azula who sat right next to her. It was as if she wasn't there at all. If her father was Firelord, Azula was convinced this wouldn't be happening because nobody would dare question her actions or stop her from doing anything she wanted.

Her mouth settled into an angry frown. She wanted Mai and Ty Lee. Where were they? Would they be waiting outside the doors or had they already abandoned her in her humiliation?

She would make every one of them pay.

When she was done speaking with the school officials, Ursa took Azula hard by the shoulder. Mom didn't treat her like she did Zuko.

Sometimes watching them when they were together made Azula nauseous, made her want to hit something.

But, as Ursa tugged her down the paths to some private place, somewhere quiet beneath the trees with their falling pink blossoms, Azula thought about how she would sometimes touch Zuko by the elbow, gently guiding him, as they walked together in the gardens, speaking softly with each other.

Then there were times where he sat at her feet, and she gently brushed his stray hair from his forehead, and kissed him in the empty space she had made.

For Azula, Mom would run a gold comb inlaid with jade through her hair as she murmured small compliments about how lovely it was, as if it were the only admirable quality about her.

Azula tried to wrench herself from Ursa's grasp and failed.

Once they were far from over eager ears, they stopped, and Ursa released her. Azula folded her arms, and waited.

Ursa turned away from her towards the trees, and pressed a slender hand against the rough bark. "What were you thinking, Azula?"

"I was thinking that it was a shame I was interrupted from my victory," Azula said. "No one would dare have done that to Father."

Ursa's shoulders tightened as she hunched over, curling inwards into something defensive. Azula's eyes narrowed, and she prowled around her mother.

"You are not your father—" the words came slowly, as if from a great distance.

"But I am," Azula said. "Don't you see?"

"And are you also not my daughter?" Ursa said, finally turning that she might face her, moving in sync with Azula that their eyes might meet. "Or are you only concerned with what your father would do, what your father would think of you?"

Azula kicked the grass until small flying insects fluttered from the wrath of her boots, from their impending doom. "What Father would do is make things better for all of us."

"Things don't need to be better. They're fine as they are. Why would you say otherwise?"

"Oh yes," Azula said. "Both you and Dad are truly the pictures of happiness as you wander the halls with your frowns, your lonely cups of tea, your—crying."

Ursa's face shuttered close, and she broke her long stare from Azula to face the tree once more. Azula thrilled that she knew something she should not have known, that her mother thought she had kept well hidden from her. She flexed her hands, feeling the fire gathering, still hot from the fight even though it was so long ago.

She didn't know what was more powerful—this knowledge or bending or both together. She dizzied under the sudden light headedness that hollowed her chest into a pit, stoking air into her stomach.

"And how-" Ursa's voice came back, thin and hollow as a reed, "would challenging a young girl to a pointless Agni Kai make anything better or anyone happy? More conflict is never the answer."

"I don't understand why you're scolding me. She was the one who challenged me to the Agni Kai!" Azula tugged at a low hanging branch and pulled it free. She ripped the tender new leaves off as she spoke. "I was just as surprised as you. But what could I say—no?"

"Yes," Ursa said, taking the branch from Azula. Azula held on to it briefly, just long enough to make Ursa work for it, then abruptly let it go. "Do you honestly expect me to believe that it was her that challenged you and not the other way around? You have a competitive streak that runs through you, Azula."

"Would I lie to my own mother?" Azula braced her fists against her waist.

"Yes, I believe you would," Ursa said. "And besides, if Eun-jae was truly the one who challenged you, then you should have said no."

"And be that girl too scared to take on one of the best firebenders in the Fire Nation Academy?" Azula scowled. "No, thank you. There was no other answer but to accept."

"You could have chosen to be her friend—you probably could have learned much from her."

Azula laughed. "I had her beaten from the beginning. What could she have taught to me? I suppose she could have taught me to lose a fight but who wants to learn how to do that."

"Why do you not care about friendship? Care? Compassion? Do these things mean nothing to you?" Ursa shook her head, and stared at her daughter.

Azula hugged herself tight. "I have friends." She would know they were her true friends if they were still waiting for her after she dealt with the authority figures telling her how to act and what to do. "They're Mai and Ty Lee."

"Mai?" Ursa looked at Azula differently.

And in that instant, Azula swore she saw herself looking from her mother's eyes. Her skin chilled as she braced herself for what Ursa would say next. Whatever it was, it wouldn't be good. The look that burned in her mother's eyes meant to hurt. "Do you know who her father is? He's a low ranking politician who has been sniffing for opportunities to make himself more powerful. I'm sure you understand that." Then she did the unbearable—kneeling before her so they were eye level. Azula hated when adults did this. It made her feel so small. She flashed her teeth as Ursa put her hands on her shoulders. "I think that their daughter being friends with a member of the royal family would do wonders for their political career. What do you think?"

Azula stilled for a moment. The promise of hurt that Ursa had held in her eyes had made their mark because Mai had never mentioned her parents—but then, she had also never asked for favors on her parents' behalf. Mai hadn't even flattered Azula. Rather, she learned. She imitated. She wanted to be like Azula (and that was safe because nobody could be as Azula as Azula could be), and she didn't want to use Azula for someone else. Still, perhaps it was something to watch out for. Azula rallied. "Isn't that what you did—married a prince to escape your washed up town?"

Mom stood, and Azula grinned up at her.

"I'm sure that the palace fares more pleasantly than whatever hut you lived in before. Now you have servants at your beck and call. Hot water to heat your baths. Nothing but the very best for your children after all. And I'm sure you want more than that—everybody wants more."

"And what do you want, Azula?"

Azula smiled. "For father to be Firelord so we all get what we want."

Ursa frowned, and looked as if she were to kneel again, but changed her mind. "Do you understand what you're saying? Your father is not in line for the throne. Your Uncle Iroh is, and after him, your cousin, Lu Ten."

"You're right, of course, but the Fire Nation is always marching to war." Azula smiled slyly. "Bad things happen to people in battle. Grandfather always sends Uncle Iroh to lead his armies, the great dragon of the west, but even dragons can be killed. When that happens, Father will sit the throne, and he will have whatever he wants, and everything will be better. And I'll be right there—at his side, in the war chambers, on the battlefield. We'll be the greatest Firelords in history."

Ursa pulled back, her face sad. "What is wrong with you, Azula? You have everything you could possibly need, possibly want, but you wish for your family's death?"

Azula shrugged. "I'm not saying it wouldn't be sad if they died."

"I can't believe my own daughter would say something so horrible."

A cold silence held between them. "Can we go back now?"

"Whatever you want, Azula." Ursa sighed, and turned up the path, but Azula quickly brushed beyond her, leaving her behind as she went to find her friends, if they were yet loyal to her.

She found them waiting for her, because what else would they be doing but waiting for her to return to them. Mai was still playing with her knife, and Ty Lee was stretching. "Come along, girls," Azula said, and they followed her without a moment's hesitation.


	11. Here We Are Now

Mai couldn't just barge back into her life. Ty Lee couldn't just barge back into her life. What gave them the right when Azula had banished them?

Though, perhaps there was some comfort to be found. After all, they had only returned when she did not have the power of a princess nor the power of a firebender.

But she hated they were probably her only way out of the palace, that it would be too much to hope that Zuko would let her go alone.

Azula stretched, trying to forget the exhaustion and the headache that had settled at the base of her skull. Even though Zuko's deliberation frustrated her, she probably would have made the same decision if their roles had been reversed—but it chafed knowing that he would be the one who had final say over what happened to her.

She wondered, briefly, if the throne room was still fringed with blue flame—but that had probably died too with the rest of her power.

Azula pressed her fist against her sternum, tried to throttle the rapid beating of her heart, the twisted up energy blocking her chi, the collapsed hollow cavity her chest had become that made it so hard to breathe.

She needed to get out of here.

This place was too depressing. It wasn't fair she was being treated like this. Even Zuko had not been so humiliated as to be permanently grounded in his own room like some child. She pulled her clothes closer to her, and slipped from her room, past the guards whose breaths smelled of rice wine from too much celebrating. She never would have stood for such negligence if she were Firelord, but she wasn't anymore-not that she had ever been. Besides, it wasn't as if they couldn't easily find her if she escaped, not with the Avatar helping as he surely would since and he and Zuko were such great friends now.

Her skin itched as she crept down the old familiar halls of the palace, missing the blue flame she had once used to light her way. She stared at her own empty palms, her fingers clenching into fists as she scowled at her treacherous limbs. She'd cut off her own hand if it meant the other would once again burn with the fire that had once been hers and that she had lost.

So many times she had flitted down these halls—when she was smaller and littler. But once Zuko had been banished, there had been little occasion to walk down this particular corridor, into this particular chamber. The first night he was gone, she had come to his room, sat on his empty bed. His belongings were still in their drawers, along with a portrait of their mother. She had stared at it for too long a time before putting it away. There had been a sheet of parchment at his desk, in case he had had occasion to write a letter, like he had the second time he left.

She had found Mai sulking, holding the letter that Zuko had written her, trying to explain why he was betraying his Nation and his father as he went to join the Avatar because it was his destiny, apparently. Blah blah blah-he had gone on and on. Azula had read Mai's letter several times because of course Zuko had left nothing for her. Father had been so unhappy, so displeased—

Azula shook those memories from her when she saw the familiar glow of lamplight bleeding from under his door, and she pushed against it and slipped inside.

Zuko was asleep in the bed, propped up by pillows. There was a scroll on his lap. He must have been working when he fell asleep.

His scar could have been just a shadow in the light. She wondered how it felt—wondered if that side of his face felt heavier, uglier, flawed. She already knew his vision was weaker if not completely blind on that side. His hearing, too, was nearly gone from the shriveled shell of his ear. She always made sure to attack him there, so he couldn't quite see or hear her coming.

Not that it had done her any good.

She shoved his shoulder. "Wake up, Zuzu."

He did, sleepy and confused, rubbing his good eye with the heel of his hand. "Azula?" His voice was soft, like her name wasn't something distasteful to him.

It should have been, though. People should always twist her name through their teeth, because if it lingered too long on their tongue, they'd burn.

Then the sleep-haze lifted like fog, and he jerked upwards, the scroll toppling from his knees to the floor. "Azula!"

She wondered if he thought that she could have done anything in this moment—that she could have killed him, if she had wished. And then she wondered why that hadn't occurred to her until after he was awake. She was slipping, losing her grip. Father would be so disappointed.

"You can't just come in here when people are sleeping!"

"Of course I can because your guards are worthless-you should probably do something about that," Azula said. "And besides, we've been surprising each other awake since we were kids, Zuko. Relax." She wrapped her arm around one of the bed posters, and leaned towards him. "After all, it's not like I'm going to try and murder you in your sleep-though I certainly could have."

He stiffened. "What do you want, Azula?"

She looked at her hands, at her nails. Li and Lo never let her grow them long anymore. "It's not the first time I haven't acted against you. Don't you remember that night when Father was going to kill you?"

"I don't want to talk about that," Zuko said.

Azula sat on the bed, near his feet. "Well, I do. You should have stayed, Zuko, instead of running like a coward after I pulled you behind the curtain so that we could watch our father's conversation with Grandpa." She tilted her head to look at him, her fingers running through her hair. "Did you know that father bears a scar? Grandpa gave it to him in a place no one would see. The screams were terrible—just as bad as your own, when Father passed his own scars to you. If you had stayed with me, if you had watched with me, you would have known it was nothing personal."

"You're lying," Zuko said.

"Oh, I assure you I'm not. Maybe you should ask him about it when you visit him next." She smirked and covered her eye with her hand. "Do you wish that Father had paid you the same courtesy? But I suppose dishonoring your father in public demands a public retribution."

"I didn't dishonor him," Zuko said. "What he did to me was cruel, and I don't want to talk about this with you."

Azula played with his red coverlet, admiring the way it slid so smoothly through her fingers. "Do you remember what I said when I came to your room that night? I think about it often—but I suppose you wouldn't since it must be such a bad memory. You must know the pain of a firstborn son by losing your own. Those were Grandfather's words, but they sound familiar—don't you think?" She raised her eyes towards Zuko as she deepened her voice. "You will learn respect, and suffering will be your teacher."

Zuko made as if to lunge at her, but she could see that his desire lacked the will, and so she stayed where she was. He aborted the action, pulled himself back. "Does this have a point?"

"It does. Because I saved your life that night, so you owe me, and now I'm calling in the favor. Grandfather wasn't making an empty threat, and you know that just as well as I do."

He stared at her, his mouth gaping—protests already taking shape on his mouth.

"I didn't have to say anything," she said, her voice rising. "I am not a messenger! I could have just watched behind a curtain as Father came for you, but I didn't." She looked up, her hair slipping and sliding down her back. "Instead, I warned you, and I told Mom what happened. And that saved your life because she did something treacherous that night and then paid the ultimate price." She glared at him, and then she broke her gaze, forcing a laugh. "Honestly, I don't know why I bothered to warn you. It's not like you or Mom were grateful, and you were still banished three years later, like nothing that happened that night mattered." She fell silent and stared at her lap.

"So why didn't you just let him take me then," Zuko said. "Become an only child like you've always wanted."

Azula sighed, flopping back on the bed with her arms stretched out, the muscles in her stomach pulled taut. She could feel Zuko's feet in the small of her back. "You could just say thank you and repay the favor. After all, I am asking nicely. Just because you're Firelord now doesn't mean you just forget your manners."

Zuko scoffed. "I'm sorry if I'm not groveling over one good deed you supposedly did for me. Never mind the fact you gloated about it and then tried to kill me later anyway. You probably didn't even tell Mom anything useful because you're a—"

"Monster?" Azula filled in. "Oh no, I told Mom everything I knew—she didn't want to believe but she did in the end. She always knew Father better than you." She remembered the smoke seeping through her mother's robe, and the room became very distant, Zuko a mere blur on the edge of her vision. "She always knew how cruel he could be."

"What are you talking about?" Zuko said. His voice was hesitant, wavering, like he wanted to know the truth but also not know.

Frowns flickered across Azula's face as she gazed at the ceiling. The memories were there, veiled in trickling smoke. She hadn't thought about them for a long time because they didn't matter now-it had happened and it was time to move on-but still there was Father's hand underneath her mother's sleeve. She could see her mother's face in the ceiling, the sweat on her skin, the way her teeth worried her mouth.

"What did he do to her?" Zuko said, his voice hard.

"He hurt her, Zuko. Obviously." Her voice was shrill and high. "And I'm not even talking about the banishment. You always said that our family used to be happy, but you were wrong. It never was. You just saw what Mom wanted you to see because she wanted to protect you. She always could be strong for you."

Zuko said nothing for a moment, but then he shuffled closer towards her. "You're lucky that he never did that stuff to you. That suffering was never your teacher."

"Of course, I don't suffer, Zuko," Azula said. "I was always the smart one or the lucky one depending on who you ask. But you're right it didn't hurt when Mom left, when she didn't even say thank you. When she didn't even say goodbye."

"She woke me up before she left," Zuko said. "She told me to never forget who I was and that she loved me."

"Aren't you lucky," Azula said. "Everybody just loves you, Zuko. For a long time, I thought you had Mom and I had Dad, but in the end, you had them both. Dad never stopped thinking about you. Every time you left, he talked about you. Talked about what you had done. Talked about how frustrated and shamed and embarrassed he was by you. He would rage at you, and the throne room would burn so hot and so bright. There was not one day he did not speak your name." She hung her head low as she laughed. "And people call me selfish."

Zuko pointed at his scar. He was angry again. "What has Dad ever done to you, huh?"

"Maybe Dad was wrong," Azula said, heaving a sigh as she pulled herself to her feet. "Maybe it wasn't that you were lucky to be born, but that you were born loved, and I was just born. I'm okay with that, of course, but you're the one always whining about it. Grow up, Zuko, and realize how good you have it."

She went to leave, but Zuko caught her wrist. "Azula—"

"This conversation has gotten so very maudlin, when it doesn't matter and the hurts are so old that it's silly to be bothered by them anymore." She twisted her own hand so that she wrenched herself from his grasp. "But I saved your life, Zuko, so you owe me. Let me go find out what happened to Mom, and let me leave by the end of the week. I can't stand another minute here, and I know that I won't make it far with the Avatar and your armies hounding me—but I'll go that path if I have to."

He didn't call her back when she reached the door, and she didn't bother looking back to make sure he had listened.


	12. A Moment Between Mai and Zuko

_Note: This chapter is a little on the short side, so I thought I would publish it early even though it's not an interlude. Thanks all for reading :)_

* * *

Mai and Zuko lounged on their couch, each in a corner, their arms crossed. Mai wondered if Zuko would let her come close to him, or if he just wanted to be left alone or if he just needed space and company. It was hard to tell sometimes, like it was hard to tell if she just wanted to leave or if she just wanted to stay or if she just wanted to not.

She sighed.

Zuko mirrored her sigh. "Are you sure you want—"

Mai tucked her chin into her shoulder and glared somewhere off to the side. "I don't want to talk about that, Zuko. You can't change my mind."

"Well, what do you want to talk about then?" Zuko said, his mouth scowling like it sometimes did.

"We could say nothing." There were things she wanted to talk to him about-like how she was afraid that they would fall into old patterns with just the three of them, but he would only try to make her stay if she did. "People always run out of things to say. My parents have been having the same conversation for years. They pretend not to notice, but it's boring."

"So you prefer silence?"

"Sometimes." Mai studied her nails. They were still apart. He was still upset with her, or maybe he wasn't and she just thought he might be. She focused on Zuko's half drunk cup of tea, which was easier to look at than his face. It reminded her of his uncle, and how she wasn't sure how to act with them both in the room. She was unsure if Iroh welcomed her, unsure even if she wanted to be welcomed by him. Azula had said things about him that made her unsure of how she should feel about him, and then there was the familiar cold anger that she was still listening to Azula, even now after all this time.

"I want to tell you something, Mai," Zuko said. "But I don't want you to freak out because it's probably nothing."

She raised her head. "What?"

"There's been rumors that there is a group of people who are not happy that I am Firelord. They want my father back on the throne, and they're calling themselves the New Ozai Society."

Mai remained very still on the couch. Azula had renamed Omashu New Ozai, but she probably wouldn't even remember that. Besides, how could she create such a society imprisoned in the palace? She had no way to communicate with the outside world. The only other people who had been in charge of New Ozai were her parents, but they would be glad that she was with the Firelord. It would do wonders for their political career. Except for the part where Zuko had removed her father from his governorship and offered him a minor government position that he had since turned down to spend more time with his family, especially since Mai would not be there to help with Tom-Tom anymore.

"What is it, Mai?"

"The name of this group," Mai said. "Why would they name themselves after an Earth Kingdom colony?"

"Perhaps you're taking it too literally. Maybe they just want my father's new age, even if he can't bend or use the power of a comet anymore."

"You're not understanding me, Zuko." Mai tried to remember everything her parents had said about Zuko, but they had said hardly anything, though her mother was glad to be back in the heart of the Fire Nation. She had never liked it in Omashu, no matter what she said.

"You're right-I'm not," Zuko said. "What's wrong?"

"My father was the governor of New Ozai. I'm sure you haven't forgotten since you officially gave it back to King Bumi."

Zuko laughed, but stopped when he saw her face. "Oh come on, Mai. You can't possibly suspect your parents of this? Your parents love me."

"I don't know what I think," Mai said, folding her arms over her chest. "I just think it's a coincidence that maybe you shouldn't ignore."

"Have they ever said anything about wanting my father back on the throne?"

Mai glowered at him. "Not to me. But why would they say anything to me? I already betrayed Azula for you. They wouldn't trust me with their secrets if their allegiance was to Ozai. They know I'd warn you." She looked at her lap. Her hands were cold, and she tucked them into her sleeves. "I shouldn't leave."

"I shouldn't have told you," Zuko said. "Now you're worried."

"Yes, you should have told me." Unless this was one of his ploys to get her to stay-but he wasn't like that. That would be something Azula would do, not Zuko. He really was just telling her, and now she had a decision to make, after she thought it was already made. When did it become so hard to choose a course of action? "And I'm not worried. I'm mildly concerned."

"I'm not worried about them," Zuko said. "I don't think they can rally enough support to actually do anything. I know I'll be making some unpopular decisions, but they'll realize that it is for the best, that the Fire Nation must make amends for what it has done. I don't think anyone can honestly say that my father's idea to use the comet to burn the Earth Kingdom to the ground was a good idea."

"Where were these reasonable people when Firelord Sozin destroyed the air nomads?"

Zuko's face paled.

"Do you really believe they're not a threat?" Mai asked.

"I do," Zuko said.

"Then I'll still go to Azula." She leaned closer to him, jabbed his chest with her finger. "But the minute you think they might be up to something that's more than just talk, you better send a messenger hawk and that flying bison."

He laughed as he folded her hand in his. "You have my word as Firelord."

They were silent for a moment, and Mai put her head on his shoulder, even though it would muss her little buns. That was something Azula cared about, something stupid girls cared about: their hair, their beautiful hair. Well, who cared. And Azula's hair wasn't that nice anyway.

Mai spread her palm over Zuko's chest, over where Azula had finally given someone a physical scar of her own after power fantasizing about it for years. There were no words big enough to thank Katara for what she had done, so Mai hadn't done it yet. She should, but she didn't know how—but she thought about what Katara did every day.

"I don't want you to go," he said, whispering into her hair. "And not because of this New Ozai business. Just in general. Just because I'll miss you and the way we hate the world together."

"You could make it up to me," Mai said. "You could let me travel in style instead of that fishing boat you picked up."

He let his arms fall around her shoulders. "It's too large for a fishing boat, Mai. And besides, traveling in style befitting a princess of the Fire Nation would defeat the purpose of it."

"Azula isn't like you," Mai said. "She's not in exile."

"She's not. But she must find balance within herself. She must learn that the world doesn't bow at her feet. She must learn that being a princess of the Fire Nation isn't about domination or imposing people with all the fine things she has, and that it's only one part of her, not her entire whole."

"But I don't need to learn that lesson," Mai said.

Zuko's smiled slyly at her. "If you desire the comfort of the palace, then stay here."

Mai hid her face from him by leaning against his shoulder. "It's not the comfort of the palace that I'll miss."

They sat in comfortable silence for some time, until Mai spoke. "I don't understand what's happening. I thought she was faking, about not being able to bend. But I don't think she is. She's really lost it." She couldn't go on. It was too strange that Azula could not bend. It was like saying that someone could survive without air. She could not imagine Azula without her firebending. She could not imagine never being afraid of it again. It was too much a part of her now, like bending had been for Azula.

Zuko touched her hand. "Something similar happened to me."

She tilted her head up, that she might look at him. "What?"

"Twice actually." He shifted, like he didn't want to look at her, like he was ashamed. "I didn't lose my bending the first time, but I was sick, afflicted with an illness my uncle said was caused by doing something contrary to everything I had once believed."

"What did you do?"

"I set Avatar Aang's bison free, where I found it imprisoned in the Earth Kingdom."

Mai sighed. She had expected something a little more exciting than that. "Then what?"

"Then, something similar happened when I switched sides—again." He looked down at his lap. "I was supposed to teach the Avatar firebending, but when it came down to it, when I left you and Azula and my father, I didn't have the power I once had. There was fire, but no heat. So much had changed—I had changed so much, that what had once given me power—my anger and my shame—didn't anymore, because they were gone."

"Is that why you agreed to her proposal," Mai said, "because you know what it's like?"

Zuko nodded. "She wouldn't have lost her bending if she wasn't in great conflict with herself. Once, my uncle told me that I was at a crossroads of my destiny, and I believe that she is at crossroads too. I know what she would choose, if she had the power—she would choose our father, and she would choose for the Fire Nation to burn everyone and everything to the ground, but she has also lost everything. Everything she once knew is in question. She can choose differently—she just needs the time and the space to make the right choice, to choose good."

Mai raised her hand to touch his face, not the side with the scar because he wasn't a huge fan of being touched there without a little warning or unless he initiated it. "You really believe in her?"

He put his hand over hers. His palm was warm, comforting. "Yes, I do. I have to, not just as her brother, but as the Firelord."

"I don't," Mai said flatly.

"You don't have to," Zuko said. "I don't blame you for not believing in her—but it's something that I have to do."

They fell back into silence again, and this time it went on unbroken. Zuko held her, and she let him for so long that they both fell into a drowse. She held his hand lightly, not tight enough to cling, just enough to remind herself that he was there, and that he would be there again, when she returned.


	13. Suki and Ty Lee

Ty Lee painted her face white and red, the green of her kimono pulling it all together into a true warrior of Kyoshi, who had once been the Avatar, like Aang.

It felt strange, sometimes, that she, a girl of the Fire Nation, was welcomed into the Earth Kingdom. Prison, perhaps, created stronger bonds than was to be anticipated.

It would be easier to tell Suki that she could no longer continue in their company at least for a time. She hoped they would let her back into their group with open arms when she returned. There were still so many new things they could learn to improve their technique and to add more skills to their repertoire. She had treasured them all up in her heart, in her mind, for years and she had so much to share.

It was hard to be light on her feet in these heavy boots. More than once she had considered crafting a pair of supple slippers to wear instead, similar to the circus shoes she had worn with Azula, when she had first danced the tight ropes of the fine edge of Azula's words, the sliver of her smile, the feather-light touch of her fingers when the slightest mistake would be enough for her to tumble head over knees.

A sweat broke out across her forehead as she remembered her last meeting with Azula, and she flushed. She braided her long hair by tugging it harshly against her scalp, pulling her skin taut to keep her eyes wide open against the sting of it.

Once, she had been free of Azula. They had graduated from the Academy. Her family had been rescued out of poverty because of Azula's good deeds (because of course a member of the Academy couldn't be a peasant—a minor position of nobility had been made for her father), and she had been Azula's friend, and then she had wanted to rejoin the circus.

Azula had been fine with that—until she needed Ty Lee again, and Ty Lee had always known, of course, that the favor Azula had done for her would never be repaid. Could never be repaid, in Azula's eyes at least.

But she had wanted to stay away from her, and then Azula had threatened her with bending that hadn't even been hers. The fire that lit the net had not been blue.

Ty Lee furled and unfurled the gold fan. Who would win in a fair fight—Mai or Ty Lee or Azula? They'd never tried until that day, and then it was the guards who had taken them away, and not Azula.

The three of them had never tried to peel back their skin with fire-forged nails to reveal their weaknesses, their fears—to leave the bones of their bodies laid bare to be treasured or to be picked clean by humiliation and defeat.

Until Mai.

Until Mai made her choose.

Until Azula made Ty Lee choose between them.

And Ty Lee hated choosing.

Growing up poor had been hard. Sometimes, she hadn't had a choice. Sometimes, there was no food for anyone. Other times, there was a little food and she could choose to eat it or give it to her sisters. There were always choices to be made between buying food or using those same coins to buy medicine to heal their sick, and there were always, always sick. Sick and weak and hungry, their skin breaking into sores from a hot sun, or shivering constantly from the cold, clothes worn thin from too much use, and always too big or too small instead of fitting just right.

No choices could be made then. Every decision was the wrong one.

Ty Lee rubbed a hand over the thickness of her kimono over her full belly.

They hadn't had full bellies like she had now. They didn't have anything so rich and yet so plain.

And they definitely had nothing like the red silks that had slipped over Azula's skin like water.

Even when they did have the money to buy whatever they wanted, she still wore something plain, something utilitarian, to remind herself that it wasn't really hers and that Azula could take it away as easily as she had given it. It was a question that had plagued her when Azula had banished her to prison, if her family would be joining her and, when she was released, she had discovered that Azula had completely forgotten about her family.

It was strange to feel gratitude for something like that.

But when they were still friends, Azula had wanted to know, why she didn't wear the fine things she could wear, the clothes she should be wearing. You have me now, Ty Lee, she had said, combing her hair with her fingers. Why don't you dress like it? Let everyone see? You don't have to be ashamed of who you are anymore.

Azula was a girl who needed to see the trophies of her endeavors, and Ty Lee would not begrudge her. Azula did things no one else did or could do and she was beautiful and perfect, but Ty Lee also knew that Azula didn't ever do anything out of the goodness of her heart.

The debt would never be repaid, not even when every single one of her family had died of old age.

Mai didn't understand because she had grown up with wealth and education and food and medicine. Perhaps she didn't really understand what it meant to be able to message home, and for her sisters to send their letters back—their grammar and characters formed so perfectly, so well spoken when before they could barely articulate their feelings on paper. No one would have been able to guess they had been born poor. Nobody called them peasants or asked if they were old Earth Kingdom colonists who had fled back home to the mother country, penniless and disgraced.

Not that there was anything wrong with the Earth Kingdom, Ty Lee thought. The old Fire Lord said they were nothing but savages, but Suki proved them wrong. Ba Sing Se had proven them wrong.

The Fire Nation was wrong about a lot of things.

The Kyoshi Warriors never mentioned Ty Lee's part in Ba Sing Se—never brought up how they had walked into the great city wearing their kimonos and their faces while they were shipped off to a Fire Nation prison to wear a rustic red that stripped them of everything that had made them them.

Ty Lee took a steadying breath, just like Azula had taught her. Of course, it worked best for firebenders, Azula had said, but it was helpful even if you couldn't bend. She'd been right of course. Azula had been right about so many things, and wrong about so many other things.

She tried to untangle the memories that had lead to the conquest of Ba Sing Se when they were supposed to have just brought Zuko home. She hadn't had a vested interest, of course, in seeing the great city fall—just in seeing Azula triumph because her triumph meant good things for them.

And, also, the thrill in succeeding where so many others had failed—others that Ty Lee had been told her whole life were better than she.

But the Kyoshi Warriors never mentioned it. Always, Ty Lee held her breath, waiting for them to throw it in her face. To accuse and challenge her.

Maybe that was just something Azula did, but still, she had her arguments prepared just in case. She would say: I taught you to bring me down. You can defeat me now if I ever turn on you. You can hold a razor edge of a fan blade to my throat and I would be helpless to stop you because I taught you how to block chi, something I never taught Azula.

She hoped it would be enough.

Someone knocked at the door and Ty Lee welcomed the distraction from the circling thoughts in her head. It was Suki—not in her Kyoshi gear, but her face a little older than the person Ty Lee had once fought in the woods.

Suki was the kind of person who didn't need armor to gain people's respect. She was so self-assured, she didn't need to flare her fan like a peacock to let everyone know.

Ty Lee respected that. "Hey Suki!" She pitched her voice familiarly high, beautifully girlish, definitely no trouble at all to anyone.

"Ty Lee," Suki said. "Why are you still all get up? Are you going somewhere?"

Ty Lee smiled serenely. "Well, I am a Kyoshi Warrior now."

"I know about Azula and that you've volunteered to go with her," Suki said, cutting straight to the point, which was something else that Ty Lee respected.

So much for pretending to ask for permission first. She should have gone to Suki right away. Ty Lee's smile slipped, so she twirled away to hide it. "It seems only fair."

"Fair? Fair to who?"

Ty Lee fell into a familiar stretch, feeling the burn in her thighs as she pulled a leg back behind her shoulder—which was exceedingly difficult through all the thick gear she wore. She looked back at Suki, whose mouth was open in appreciation. "Fair to everyone, of course." She switched to the other leg. "The last time we were with Azula, it was bad. I don't think you understand how bad. Everything is raw and sore—and not the good kind of sore that comes when you slough off your rough edges and find solace and comfort in your friends." She could still smell that campfire on the beach if she breathed deep enough. Could still feel the hurt of being called circus freak. Mai's apathetic observation stung in between her shoulders in that place she could never quite reach. It wasn't fair that she had said those things. What was so wrong with wanting to be in the center? To be seen, to be appreciated, to be admired?

She bent at the waist to hide the twist in her lip. She had been so sure that things were going to be different after the beach. She guessed, in the end, that they had been, but not in the way that she had wanted them to be. Maybe it had been stupid of her to think that things could change for the better. "There's so much bad energy knotted up in our auras. I can even see it in Mai's despite the perpetual dinginess of hers. But everyone is brooding like a storm cloud, and my aura could be pinker."

"Is that your way of saying you need resolution?"

"It's my way of saying that Azula's aura is so dark and blue it looks like a big bruise," Ty Lee said. "She needs to heal, and it won't happen here."

"You need to heal," Suki said. "That friendship was not a friendship."

"It was," Ty Lee said, dropping into the splits. She gestured for Suki to pull up her leg so she could deepen the stretch.

Suki obliged. Ty Lee knew she could keep pulling if she wanted to. Could make the burn turn into pain, could turn her steady breathing into sobs as she pleaded for Azula to let go, to go easy on her. And Azula would have said—had said—that it was for her own good because didn't she want to be the best?

"She threw you in prison," Suki said.

"You would have done the same."

Suki guided Ty Lee's leg down, and knelt beside her. "Only because you were the Fire Nation burning down the Earth Kingdom. I wouldn't put my friend in prison simply because I felt that I had been betrayed."

"I did betray her," Ty Lee said.

"You don't need to go back to her," Suki said. "You don't need to be friends with her just because she says you need to, or because she wants something back from the good old days."

Ty Lee couldn't help but giggle at that. "She would sooner see me burn than see my face again. She doesn't want to be friends." Her ribcage felt like it was collapsing in on her lungs, like it was squeezing every breath out of her. After everything—it wasn't fair. Even alone and powerless in her room, Azula was still calling every single shot. "She doesn't know how to forgive."

If anybody ended the friendship, it would be Ty Lee. She had been willing to overlook Azula crossing the line in regards to Mai, so why couldn't Azula pay her the same courtesy?

They had both crossed the line, and after they had hurt each other, they had eventually fallen back to the other side of it. They could back from this.

The first thing that Ty Lee had learned in the circus was that she would fall, and she had to be prepared for that.

Hence the net. Hence learning how to fall safely, body curled up protectively around the fragile pieces of her.

Azula and she might have fallen from the tight rope they'd tiptoed across together, but that didn't mean there wasn't a net. That didn't mean they still had to fall and fall, bellies dropping, eyes flashing glimpses of the other's face as they waited for them to bottom out, to belly flop against rock and stone and splash the walls with the beautiful red of their fears turned inside out.

That's why they needed Mai.

"Ty Lee?" Suki said, her hand heavy on Ty Lee, like she was trying to wake her from a deep sleep.

"What is it?"

"Are you sure about this? I mean, really really sure?"

Ty Lee bestowed upon her the most winning smile in her wide repertoire of smiles—one for every occasion. "Of course I'm sure. I've never been more sure about anything in the whole world."

Suki sighed, and folded her hands in Ty Lee's. "Okay. If you are sure, then I'm sure that I'm coming with you."

Those were the very last words that Ty Lee had expected from Suki's mouth—Suki, who had spent so much time away from home, who had told Ty Lee that she needed to see the way the sun set over Kyoshi Island again. That she needed to watch the sea serpent lounge like lazy islands in the shallow water. That she missed their sweet fruits, the way the juice would trickle down their chins, the way everything was perfect and home and not here at all. "You don't have to do that." Ty Lee's words faltered and tumbled from her lips like she'd just learned to walk on her hands.

"I know. But I have an outsider's eye. I was never friends with Azula, and I can stop anything if she takes it too far."

"Is that the only reason you're coming?" Ty Lee folded her arms over her chest, pouting a little bit. "To chaperone?"

"No. I'm also coming because you're a Kyoshi Warrior now. Unlikely as it may seem, we're sisters. Sisters stick together, thick and thin, no matter how long or short our road together might be."

Ty Lee caught Suki's hand as she turned to go. "I lied before, when we first met. Before we knew anything about you."

"Back when we were enemies?" Suki asked.

Ty Lee would have liked it better if Suki had smiled just a little bit—haha, those good old days when we were on different sides of the war—but that was the thing about Suki. She was always honest. "I said that you weren't prettier than us—but you are. Your aura is a spring green—like new things growing." In better days, Ty Lee knew that their auras would complement each other—but these days, her pink was more nauseous than healthy and rosy.

Suki blushed a very tiny bit. "Thank you, Ty Lee." Then she was gone, and Ty Lee was alone.

She bent at the waist, stretched her back like a serpent so that the hot tears gathering in her eyes would not fall.


	14. Departure

Zuko had deigned to give them a small ship for their journey. He granted no servants—technically, no servants existed anymore. They received payment now, security of position, and other such things that made them more equals than not.

It was different than how their father had done things. How she would have done things.

However, she was not expecting to be visited so soon before she took her leave of them by an irritated Zuko and an infuriated Water Tribe boy. She watched them as Sokka stormed through the hallways, Zuko hurrying after him.

People were beautiful when they were angry. They were easy to manipulate. Once, her brother had caved easily to that anger—but now, it was almost as if he were not her brother anymore even though he was.

How could she recognize him without his anger?

Sokka finally managed to break past Zuko's attempts to hold him back and burst through her room. "What did you say to them? Don't bother lying." His face was twisted into an ugly frown.

Azula took her time answering. "I'm a very good liar. It's what I do. But you'll have to be more specific. I talk to lots of people."

"Suki," Sokka said, "what did you say to Suki?"

Azula sighed the sigh of the long suffering. "I haven't even spoken to Suki since I locked her away all those months ago." She fluttered her hand as if time were meaningless. "Perhaps you should ask her instead of me."

Zuko looked from her to Sokka, then back again. "She's going with you. Did you know?"

"Well, since my chambers are essentially serving as a prison cell I don't see how I could possibly have known. Unless you think I can read minds now?" She turned away so they wouldn't see her pulse jumping in her throat or how she clenched her fist against her chest. Suki coming? Mai coming? She would never escape with those two trailing her.

"Ty Lee's coming too," Zuko said. "She's already spoken to Mai about it."

"Of course she has," Azula said. There was a time when she would have spoken to Azula first in all things. Ty Lee had been the first of their trio. Ty Lee had been the first to rejoin her.

At least she hadn't been the first to betray her.

But now she saw clearly. Azula had never been first. She thought she had been their head, their face, but she hadn't been. Had it been Ty Lee? Mai? And, now that they would all be together again, where would Azula fall between them?

Newly stoked shamed burned in her stomach when she realized that she was on the verge of tears.

"Look, Zuko—" Sokka's voice came from far away, speaking as if she were not there—"I get that you're good now and you saved my sister and everything, but my instincts are telling me that this is a stunningly bad idea. Do you remember the last time those three got together? They took over Ba Sing Se! They almost killed Aang! Nobody just does that—only dangerous people do."

"I remember," Zuko said hastily. "Don't feed her ego."

There was shame in his voice too, and it made Azula feel not so alone, and it made her sick that she would seek something like solace with her brother. She remembered what she had said, that she had needed him by her side deep in the caverns of Ba Sing Se when she had caught him (again) listening to the words of their treacherous uncle who always had so many precious words to spare for his precious Zuzu.

"Besides," he said, going over to Sokka and putting his hand on his shoulder, "Ty Lee is in the Kysohi Warriors and Mai—"

"Loves you more than she fears me. I can't think of a better trio of babysitters." Azula ran her fingers through her hair and settled her face into stone. "I have nothing to do with their decisions. They were made without me. You know me, Zuko, I work best alone. If I were planning something, I'd plan it by myself and not with enemies and traitors. If you're upset about it, talk to them."

"Zuko, don't listen to here!" Sokka protested.

"I will not be delayed any longer by this!" Azula said. "If I'm not on that boat you found for me by the end of the week, I'll escape the palace and make my own way and deal with whoever you send after me, even if it's the Avatar himself. And I think," she added, smiling, "you remember how I've dealt with him before. I'll also tell every person I pass that the great Firelord Zuzu is a liar and a coward. It's your choice."

Sokka blinked at her, then leaned dramatically toward Zuko. "You're going to let her talk to you like that?"

"It means nothing," Zuko said. "You leave tomorrow. The preparations will be finished by then."

Zuko took Sokka by the arm, guiding from her room, and then they were gone, leaving her blissfully alone.

Azula tried to firebend, hoping that the promise of freedom would spark something, but nothing happened.

She raised her hands, imagined smashing them until they were mangled and useless. They might as well be. She gripped a fistful of hair, twisting it painfully, before she remembered that her room had been gutted of her scissors and all her sharp things—as if her material possessions no longer belonged to her, just like her body didn't belong to her, just like her will to go as she pleased didn't belong to her.

Crawling into bed, she brought her knees to her chest so that she wouldn't have to feel that gnawing, fallow pit in her stomach.

At least the mirror was gone. At least she didn't need to worry about meeting her mother's eyes in an unlucky glance.

Azula woke early before the dawn to ready herself for the journey. She wore the clothes she had worn a long time ago when her father had ordered her to bring her brother home.

But Li and Lo came when the sun was just a pink ribbon on the horizon. They brought with them clothes that were not befitting a lady of her station: rough, homespun tunics of a questionable color—something that would allow her to pass through the four kingdoms without overtly signaling that she was Fire Nation. Clothes that looked as if she could be anything and nothing at the same time.

They undressed her. They held her hands in theirs and trimmed her nails. They dressed her quickly and efficiently.

The garment hung loose over her thin shoulders. The trousers were wide—not as wide as Mai's, but wide and loose enough that she could fight easily in them if she were required to. The collar hung low, scraping her collarbones instead of the regalia she had once worn hugging her neck in close, protecting it, protecting her.

She might as well have been naked in this.

Li and Lo handed her boots that promised to turn her own feet into leather when they invariably wore thin. They held her feet in their dry, old hands as they helped her slip the boots on.

For a moment, she leaned into their touch. They were warm, and her feet were cold.

When they had finished dressing her—twitching at the folds so they lay just right, smoothing the sash around her waist—they turned her so that she faced them.

Li cupped her cheeks with her warm hands while Lo moved to stand behind Azula. A comb scraped against her scalp, and Azula closed her eyes.

"Princess Azula," they crooned.

She opened her eyes.

"You are not being sent away in disgrace as your brother Zuko."

Li's thumbs moved in circles and Lo's hands were gentle in her hair. It wasn't until Li held a small mirror before her that Azula realized what they had been doing.

Lo had tied her hair into a topknot with a bit of red ribbon.

"You are not in exile," they said.

"Because he expects me to come crawling back, weeping about how much a monster I am. He'll want me to prove my goodness." She frowned and tugged herself from their loose embrace. She did not know how to be good. She did not want to be good.

"Your brother doesn't see it that way, Princess Azula," they said.

Azula scoffed and waited for them to escort her to the dock. She couldn't imagine there was anything else that needed to be done.

Their ship was small—big enough for the four of them, but that was about it. Mai and Ty Lee were there already. Suki was kissing Sokka goodbye and it made Azula's stomach turn.

Ty Lee cartwheeled to her, no longer wearing the Kyoshi Warrior garb but something dark and ambiguous like Azula's own clothes. Her stomach was bare again. Ty Lee flung her arms wide and fell crushingly around her shoulders, and it took all of Azula's strength not to stagger under her weight.

"Oh, Princess Azula!" Ty Lee said. "It's so good to see you again!" She stepped back, her fingers curved into the soft flesh of her shoulders, thumbs pressed against pressure points Azula knew Ty Lee could use to hurt her if she wanted. "I think we're going to have so much fun together."

Azula glared at her. "We're not here to have fun, Ty Lee."

"Aren't you going to hug me back, Azula?"

How did no one else see the steel creeping into Ty Lee's soft eyes? But Azula saw that the others were watching her, and that what she did in this moment counted, so she quickly stepped towards Ty Lee and hugged her.

Mai stood by Zuko's side, her arms folded tight against her. "I'm not doing that," she said in her bored dead voice.

Azula saw the shimmer of silver in her sleeves and wondered again if Mai would have killed her if she could-had not Ty Lee interfered.

How hungry had Mai been in that instant?

Mai turned toward Zuko, and he dipped toward her, the scarred side of his face pressed gently against Mai's cheek, her eyes drifting closed for an instant as she pressed a kiss to his mouth.

It was sickening.

As Azula stomped up the gangway leading to the deck of the ship, she distantly heard Li and Lo bidding her goodbye. But someone caught her wrist, and she turned to see Zuko holding onto her. "Careful, Zuko. One might think you'd want me to stay." She smiled. "Remember the last time we were on a ship?"

Zuko covered his cheek with his palm. "You scratched me."

She flicked his forehead with her fingers. "It was here, dum-dum. Not your cheek."

He scowled at her. "And then tried to shoot lightening at me."

"It certainly wasn't the first time for that, either." She smiled at him, thinking of the scar on his chest, then turned to see that the ship was mostly empty of occupants. "Where are the sailors?"

"We couldn't find anyone who desired to go," Zuko said. "The four of you will sail yourselves."

"Oh. How delightful." She looked at the water lapping the sides of the ship. "Then we had better hurry if we want to beat the tide."

Mai and Ty Lee and Suki filed in line on the ship. They released the moorings, let down the sail to catch the wind, and finally, for the first time, Azula felt a little less trapped.

Soon, the Fire Nation, her home for so long, disappeared beyond the horizon.

"Where are we going, Azula?" Ty Lee said. She was scrambling in the rigging.

"Ember Island. My brother hid there for some time with the Avatar—or so I've been told. Perhaps Mom had the same idea, hiding so close to home no one would think to look for her there. And if she was never there, maybe we'll find a clue as to where she might have gone."

It was a good story, Azula thought. Ty Lee shrugged, as she always did, and went with whatever Azula said (for now, at least). Mai glared harder, but said nothing.

Mai knew, Azula realized. Perhaps even Ty Lee knew. But they were granting her the gift of playing along, knowing that Ember Island was a ridiculous place to start, and that if Azula were truly invested in finding Mom as soon as possible she would have immediately gone to her hometown, which was a long journey over land and sea that provided very little opportunity to get her bending back. Wherever she would find her bending, it wouldn't be on this dingy boat.

It would be someplace that had once been home.


	15. A Place Called Home

_CW for self harm in this chapter._

* * *

For Azula, it was humiliating and insufferable being forced to crew her own ship. Before, when she had been sent to fetch her brother home, she had stayed out of the crew's sight, out of touch from the wind and the sun and the spray of the water. Hidden behind her curtains, born on the shoulders of those made to carry her, she had done nothing but waited and plotted, devising the lies that would best entrap her brother.

It had had left her bored and restless as she waited for them to make shore. And then she had to wait again for Zuko and Iroh to return from—wherever. There had only been seashells to keep her company, dirty little things, gritted with sand. They hadn't even seen her when they had entered.

And then she had waited for Zuko to accept her lies: come home, Father misses you, you're forgiven, there's nothing more important than family.

Blah blah blah.

She missed those days. Now, there was no one to carry her, her lies had been told, and she had to sail the ship with the other girls. Suki and Ty Lee took to it well-they were used to working for everything. Mai did it as she did everything-gloomily. They didn't seem to mind how the wind chapped their hands raw, how heaving ropes left tender blisters to harden into callouses, how their nails split and bled from attending the sails and scrubbing the deck. Azula no longer had the hands of a princess, and she missed the attention her servants would have once paid to them. She missed how they scrubbed her feet, soothing the tight knots that shaped her arches. She deserved more than this, more than her cracked and splitting nails, more than her hair perpetually crusted with salt. She had lost her bending-why wasn't that enough? Why did she have to lose everything else that made life bearable?

At the end of the day, she was so weary she could not help but fall asleep quickly. Perhaps this too was her brother's plan. Make her weak with exhaustion so she was unable to scheme and devise.

She didn't deserve to be treated like this.

She wasn't trapped in her room anymore but there was still no escape. And the scrape of water against the hull made her nervous.

She had been caught in water once before. Unable to move. Unable to breathe. Bent low and chained to a grate. Made helpless and weak and defeated.

She turned on her side, blankets crushed around her ears so she wouldn't have to hear the ship's wooden ribs creaking like old women. But there was another noise too—Mai and Ty Lee together, when they should have been sleeping.

What were they doing, like that?

Azula's skin crawled as she listened to them speak with each other quietly, and she wondered what they were talking about, together in the dark.

She put her fingers in her ears to block out Ty Lee's high pitched giggles, Mai's reticent "shut up," and tried not to think about them together-happy, as if nothing had happened. As she listened, struggling to hear, to discern each individual word, she thought about what she could say to Zuko on their return. What she might imply about Mai and Ty Lee together. How she could break his heart as she gushed about how they got on together so well as she smiled her cruel smile and assured him that it was probably nothing.

But that would be ages away because they wouldn't be home any time soon.

Predictably, Suki was the one who questioned her the most. She missed the old days when Mai and Ty Lee did as they were told without comment or question or challenge. Suki wanted a game plan. Suki wanted to know what would happen next after Ember Island. Suki practically wanted a map with their entire course neatly laid out.

For the first time in a long time, Azula didn't have a plan. If her bending didn't come back when she was at Ember Island, she didn't know where to find it next. If she couldn't find anything about Mom on Ember Island—she'd have to sail north, to Mom's hometown.

And she couldn't do that.

She couldn't be on the water for that long, with these people.

"We'll ask Uncle Iroh," she said.

Mai picked at her rice, glowering. "Wouldn't your uncle have told Zuko everything he needed to know? What's the point of going to Ba Sing Se? We're not going to wander our way across the four nations. We follow the clues and go home as quickly as possible."

Azula leaned towards her. "It must be hard for you, helping me look for my mother. At least my mother has an excuse for being absent—but yours doesn't. You already know where your mother is, and yours knows where you are, so the fact that she doesn't care about you hurts all the more." Azula casually ate a bite of rice.

Mai rolled her eyes. "You figured me out. Well done."

"Oh, come on, Azula," Ty Lee said. She slipped her hand in Mai's, like she was comforting her or something. Why would Mai need comfort? It wasn't like she was the one who had lost her bending or who was sent on an impossible quest to find a mother who was probably dead because Firelord Ozai never did anything half way. It wasn't like Mai had to rescue her father from anything-after all, Firelord Ozai had handed her father everything he had ever wanted, practically rescuing him from political obscurity.

Azula scowled at them. "If you two want to run along home, please don't stay on my account. You volunteered to go, you can volunteer to leave if the rigors of travel or my company are too much for you. You needn't worry about my feelings. They won't be hurt. After all, I have none."

Suki put her bowl of rice down with a small thump. "Can you not do that?"

"Do what?" Azula said, feigning innocence. "You're the one asking the questions. I'm simply answering them. Or would you rather I be sullen and sulky like Mai?" She folded her arms across her chest and pulled her face into an exaggerated frown.

"You shouldn't treat your friends that way," Suki said. "They're doing this for you, even though you betrayed them and threw them in prison."

Azula put down her chopsticks, and slipped her hands in her sleeves so they would not see the fine shivering in her fingers. "Friends? Do you think we were ever friends?" She looked at Mai and Ty Lee. "What do you think? Do friends betray each other by stabbing them in the back?"

Ty Lee lunged forward, but Mai and Suki held her back. "If we're going to talk about betrayal," Ty Lee said, "then you betrayed us first. You ordered them to burn my safety net!"

"Really?" Mai asked. "That the example you're going to use?"

Azula smoothed her hair. "Mai has a point. Are you still mad at me for that? I knew you could handle it. Besides, don't even pretend that you weren't flattered I chose you first, just like you were when you were a little no name nobody."

"I don't need you to give me a name or a face," Ty Lee said, her cheeks flushing. "I don't need you. At all. For anything."

"That's right, Ty Lee, you don't need me at all, for anything. You didn't need me when you were starving, and you didn't need me when you were about to get thrown out of the Academy, and you certainly don't need me now."

Ty Lee clenched her hands into fists, her mouth twisting but Mai interrupted her. "Calm down, Ty Lee. She's trying to make you angry. Just ignore her and she'll go away. Or she'll get bored."

"That's your song, Mai. I don't get bored." Azula stood and stretched. "So there you see it, Suki. You were wrong about us. We were never friends."

Ty Lee sagged to her knees, all the fight draining out of her as her shoulders hunched and drooped. "You don't mean that. You can't just forget the past and mean that." Tears began to fall.

Mai was silent as usual. Not that that meant anything. She never said anything unless it was a real game changer. Like how she loved Zuko more than she feared Azula.

How rich Zuko must be to be so loved.

Sighing, Mai handed Ty Lee a dark silk handkerchief, and Ty Lee wiped her eyes and cheeks.

It was a good thing that Ty Lee had not wept when she had blocked her chi. How Azula hated to see Ty Lee cry. Of course, even if she had cried, it wouldn't have changed anything. She would have still thrown them in a place she would never have to see their faces again. And now, they crowded around her, trapping her with their accusations and their treachery. "This has been a delicious meal. I hope everyone enjoyed it as much as I did," Azula said.

"Perhaps we shouldn't share our meals together anymore," Suki said. "It might be better for everyone."

Azula shrugged. "Do whatever you want. Don't trouble yourself on my account."

"That's the problem, isn't it?" Suki said. "You think we've underestimated you, and that we don't know what we're up against, but we know you're still dangerous. We know that you're still unbalanced, and that you're waiting to strike when you think we aren't looking. But we are looking. We're not going to let you hurt anybody, we're not going to let you hurt us."

Azula yawned. "I'm reformed now. I wouldn't dream of hurting anybody. If you excuse me, I'm going to make sure we are still on course for Ember Island. It would be a shame to delay our journey more than necessary by getting lost or worse."

It did not take them too long to find their way to Ember Island. The beach was populated with the same sort of adolescents that had been there the last time Azula had come here, with Zuko and Mai and Ty Lee. She watched them from the deck of the ship as she navigated it towards the dock their family had once used regularly, every year. They were laughing or playing or lounging in the sun. Even when she had joined them that day on the beach, they had been apart from them, separate from them, better than them and their petty, insignificant concerns. With a shake of her head, Azula turned away from them, focusing instead on their house at the top of the hill as they left the boat and walked up the stony, sandy path.

Their old residence had definitely seen grander days. It had been dilapidated when she had last been here with Zuko—but it hadn't looked like this.

Now, it was almost ruined. Scorch marks blackened the walls, the roof destroyed. She recognized the shadow and ash of her brother's bending—he had been here, after that night on the beach, he had returned and done what they should have done in the first place: destroyed everything. Azula's breath caught in her throat as she rubbed her palm against one of the burns. Her hand came away, dusty with charcoal and ash. She blew softly, and it caught the air in a fine smoke.

The door had been knocked down—as if their memories were up for anybody to grab, for anyone to take a look.

They should have burned this place down after they had finished humiliating those annoying teenagers at that stupid party. They should have burned it with a fire so hot the entire beach turned to glass.

Together, Azula knew that she and Zuko could have made a fire that hot.

She clenched her fist as she remembered the night of the comet—how hot he had burned, how hot they had both burned. Except, she should have unleashed a volcano upon him instead of the pathetic blue fire she had used, should have captured him in jagged walls of obsidian if only she had not sent her earthbenders away. But by then, her fire had already gone—the comet had allowed her a momentary grace, easily given and just as easily taken away as it followed the aborted path of her father.

Zuzu never should have even stood a chance.

Mai and Ty Lee clustered behind her.

"I thought it'd be bigger," Mai said. "You always had such great things to say about it."

Azula turned, smiling at Mai. "Why don't we compare? Where's your Ember Island beach house?"

Mai blinked at her unimpressed while Ty Lee looped her arm around Mai's shoulder, laughing softly against her neck. It sounded like she was laughing at Azula but that was impossible since, dilapidated condition or no, she was the only one whose family had a beach house and not a one of them did so why were they laughing at her when it was Mai who had walked into her humiliation, eyes open? It had almost been too easy.

Azula scowled at them.

"What are we looking for?" Suki said, stepping forward, taking charge.

Azula's skin bristled. "Anything my mother may have left behind."

She turned to face the ruined door, whining softly on its broken hinges. This place, this house—it brooded with memories that Azula had not bothered to remember for years because they were so depressing. She stood still in the doorway. She could not move forward because if she did, she would not be able to breathe. Already, she was breathing so shallowly the air was not reaching her stomach. It was because of the dust, she decided, there was so much dust and ash here, of course a person wouldn't be able to breathe properly.

Azula started when she felt someone gently touch the small of her back, fist already swinging before she saw that it was just Suki who had dared to touch her. Suki blocked her would-be blow easily, fluidly dropping into a defensive stance.

Out of the corner of her eye, Azula saw that Ty Lee's fingers were crooked and ready to find those most vulnerable points, ready to drop her again like some tired piece in a game that Azula had already lost. One of Mai's knives glinted in her gloved fingers.

Azula would have stepped back, hands raised because a princess always surrenders with honor, but Suki had her tight in her grasp, her hand clenched around her wrist, a dull promise of pain if she squeezed a little harder, or twisted just slightly to the right or left. Azula could escape, easily, by sidestepping and pulling Suki off balance, but now wasn't the time. Where was she to go? She couldn't sail the ship by herself.

"It's only me," Suki said, gently, like she was an animal in need of being calmed. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to startle you." At Suki's gesture, Ty Lee stood down, and Mai stowed her knife away reluctantly a few moments after.

Once, they had follows Azula's orders. Her lead. Her command.

Azula remembered to scoff at Suki's words as she pulled herself from her grasp. "Don't overestimate yourself. As if I could be frightened by you."

Suki sighed. "Why don't we start with your mother's room." She put firmer pressure on the small of Azula's back as she stepped from the porch and into the house, gently pushing Azula to lead the way.

Goosebumps prickled Azula's skin even though the night wasn't chill, even though there was no reason for them to be there. Azula rubbed her knuckles over her arm until her skin was red and sore, but still her gooseflesh stayed and still a creeping cold descended down her spine. It was the same chill she had felt when she was watching her father and her mother at a table, steam from their tea twisting between them.

She longed for the days when her body had never betrayed her—not with its stuttered heartbeats, not with her knotted up chi gnarled up inside her, not her hair refusing to stay put and perfect, not even her skin that had once been smooth and flawless and beautiful. Now scabs scarred her skin and she would look down and find them bleeding with her nails daubed in red.

This place made her heart jump against her rib cage, made her breath shallow and fast until it was more like a pant against the certainty that if she were to continue to enter the house she would be trapped—that the walls would fall on her and she would be crushed under the burned out remains of her brother's presence and his absence, the dust smelling like the afterthoughts of jasmine tea, the kind her uncle used to make, and the foundations shaking with the secrets that she had once heard whispered by her mother beneath the beach umbrellas when Azula was not supposed to be around, when she was not supposed to be listening-she shook her head, she would not remember it, it was too depressing to be remembered.

Azula dug her heels into the wood, trying to steady her breath, trying to push it down into her stomach and breathe just breathe, but she couldn't find it. It flitted in her lungs and her mouth and her nose like the butterflies that had once flown in their gardens, like the butterflies she had lured with sugary tea and left to down, their lacy wings kept fine and fragile and delicate in crystalized sugar.

She had thought that Mom would slap her hands for that, make them red and smarting, but she hadn't. She never did anything but sigh and wonder and grieve.

"Azula?" Ty Lee's face loomed in front of Azula's swimming vision like a pale moon. "Are you okay?"

Azula opened her mouth to say something that would remind Ty Lee that she was Azula, Princess of the Fire Nation, conqueror of Ba Sing Se, and that she was always perfect and kept and poised and composed, but the only thing that fell from her lips was a hiccupped gasp as her hand gripped at her chest, as if she could physically rip through the skin and bone and force herself to breathe.

Then Mai's voice, bored and distant. "What's wrong with her?"

Suki guided Azula to sit on the crumbling steps. "She's having an anxiety attack."

They were talking about her as if she didn't exist. As if she weren't properly there. As if she were a thing instead of their princess.

She hated them. She hated Ty Lee for her hovering, Mai for her aloofness, how Suki was touching her elbows and guiding her to sit down, that this would surely be reported to Zuko who could tell anybody, who could tell their father, and then she was bowing her head between her knees, throwing up, and hating her stomach for betraying her, her body betraying her again and again and again, just like Mai and Ty Lee and Zuko.

"We don't have to go in today, if you don't want," Suki said. "Or I can go in if you tell me where your mother stayed, and I can bring out her things to you. Or we can sleep and try again tomorrow. The night is warm, and I don't think we'd need the shelter of a house tonight."

Mai rolled her eyes, her arms folded tight across her chest. "I can't believe this."

"What do you want to do, Azula?"

She wanted to return to her father. She wanted her crown back. She wanted her bending back. She wanted to be home in the Fire Nation palace, where people would not dare touch her or even look upon her. "I want to never see your faces again." She jerked from Suki's grasp and stumbled to her knees before she staggered to her feet, swaying as she struggled for balance. "I don't need your pity, and I don't need your help." She pulled at her hair. It hurt, and she did it again so that her skin would become large enough for her body, so there wouldn't be that dull ache as she felt it stretch too thinly over her bones.

Suki pulled away. "We're only trying to help. Though why I don't know."

Azula laughed. "Stop pretending you care—I know you hate me, and you're only here for them." She jerked her chin at Mai and Ty Lee. "You still fear me, you still fear what I might do to them."

"You're right that I'm only here for them," Suki said. "I don't care about you. You defeated me. You threw me in prison. You used us to sneak into Ba Sing Se when we had come to help them. You are despicable to me, and I hope you never recover your bending."

"I didn't need my bending to bring down the walls of Ba Sing Se. I only needed you," Azula said.

Suki's mouth twisted. "But I made a promise to Firelord Zuko, and I made a promise to Ty Lee."

"And let me guess," Azula said, "you keep your promises."

Suki pulled herself so she stood straight. "I do."

Azula laughed until she lost her breath again, until her sides hurt and ached. What good had keeping promises done for any of them? Promises were made to be broken.

"Do you care for honor as much as dear Zuzu does?" Even though honor had exiled Zuko, had put that scar on his face. Had made him pick the wrong side, had brought him to his knees crawling back to Uncle, abandoning his father, his throne, his home.

I restored my own honor, Zuko had said, looking at his Uncle with something like love.

As if she hadn't been the first one who had told him that as she sat on the throne in Ba Sing Se.

"Can we please do something, instead of listening to this nonsense?" Mai said.

Mai was right. This was nonsense. The things she felt were stupid and weak. Father would be so ashamed and embarrassed if he could see her now, though why should he judge when his bending was gone too, when he was in prison? It was funny, really, and so she laughed like she had that night when her lightening had hit Zuko, straight in the chest, after he had taunted her, promised he'd bend it back, but he broke that promise. He took the blast, smoking as he fell, unable to stand, unable to move, unable to speak, and she had done that, and she had done that with the cold fire and nothing had ever felt so hot, nothing had ever felt so feverish, nothing had ever felt so—

Ty Lee touched her shoulder, and Azula stopped laughing, jerking away.

"Princess Azula," she said, her voice trilling and soft as a bird's. "Are you alright?"

Azula shook herself. "I'm fine. Mai is just hilarious-wouldn't you agree?"

Mai sighed and put on a longer face than normal, and Ty Lee smiled at Azula. "No, I can't say that I do."

Suki stepped towards them, clearing her throat. "We'll sleep outside, and start again tomorrow. Things will be better when it's light. We will all have clearer heads and a better attitude."

Silently, the girls made camp near the porch to their old house. Maybe Suki was right in this one thing, Azula thought as she fell asleep. Maybe when she woke, she would find find her bending restored as the sun thrummed beneath her skin, guiding her chi, waking her with fire and flame.

Azula woke with the sun when it was rising over the ocean. The water glinted, gleaming like it cradled the night stars in its hand. She stretched, pulling her skin tight over her bones under a thin sheen of sweat even though it wasn't hot outside. She put her hand to her forehead because maybe she was sick. But she had always been sick, people said, not in her flesh, just in her head.

Azula forced herself to keep going, to ease her body into stretches that Ty Lee had taught her when they had first been friends. They'll open your chi, she had said, and of course Ty Lee knew all about chi, how to make it flow, how to lock it up in one's body, leaving them weak, hurt, betrayed.

Azula pressed her palm against her side where Ty Lee's knuckles had struck light and firm, just like she danced. It had hurt so much it should have bruised, but it never had.

She slid into the splits. There was no stretch, no ache, no burn. She needed another person to help her really feel anything in this position, to push her harder so she could come back stronger. This was nothing. This was just a motion. Nothing would come of it but the steadying breath of her morning ritual.

Then, like the old days when her presence was a siren call to any lonely looking girl who wanted more than her parents could ever give her, Ty Lee was at her side, crouching so they faced each other eye to eye like equals.

"Do you want help?" she asked.

Azula lifted her head, forced herself to settle her face into blankness. "Do you what you want, Ty Lee. I certainly won't stop you." She wanted to say yes, she wanted to say no. The last time Ty Lee had touched her she had taken everything away, and what would her touch take away this time? But Ty Lee, that pink traipsing circus freak who didn't even wear boots or bend fire, couldn't know that, couldn't know that Azula's skin crawled when she heard her glass-tinkling laughter. They could both fell armies, but Azula had been more than an army, had done what her father's men and grandfather's men could not, and Ty Lee had made her fall in front of all of them.

Ty Lee took what she said for permission, and Azula stilled herself as she felt Ty Lee's hands encircle her ankle. The bone was fragile, easily twisted. Ty Lee was strong enough to sprain or break it without effort. She could hurt Azula with a flick of her wrist, a press of her fingers. It's something Azula had thought about all the time when she had cradled Ty Lee's limbs in her hand, assisting her with the stretch as they pushed and pulled each other through the feel-good aches. She had thought about what she could do, what she might do, and she hadn't done it even though she could have, even though it wouldn't have been hard. Azula's heart skittered underneath her rib bones because the same thoughts must have occurred to Ty Lee. Once, it wouldn't have mattered if Ty Lee did indulge in that kind of fantasy because she wouldn't do anything, of course she wouldn't do anything, she would be too scared, but then she had done something.

She could always do something again.

"Tell me if this is too much," Ty Lee said as she lifted Azula's back leg so she could deepen the stretch.

"More," Azula said, setting her teeth when Ty Lee complied. She held it for about thirty seconds, then pulled her limb even higher until she heard Azula's sharp intake of breath and saw the shivering in her muscles.

"You've lost some," Ty Lee said, running her free hand along her leg to smooth the twitches and the tremors away. "Did the person who helped you in my absence not do so well? Were they too afraid to push you as far as I did?"

Azula flinched, laboring for breath as the stretch seared her muscles. Ty Lee was right. She had lost some of her flexibility, trapped and cooped up as she had been in her room. She had tried to keep it, just like she had tried to keep her bending, just like she had tried to make her hair behave. "Maybe you're the one's who's lost your touch. Maybe you're too afraid to push back."

"You know I'm not." There was a sharp edge to Ty Lee's voice as she pushed Azula's leg up without the gentle ease of before.

Azula braced herself with her fists to the ground, not quite catching a whimper of pain before buttoning her lips shut, focusing instead on her breath in her stomach, the line of sweat running down her spine.

"Did you say something, Princess Azula?" Ty Lee asked, all sweetness as she kept pulling to deepen the stretch.

She had heard, she had wanted to hear her make that noise again. In a life time of pushing Ty Lee to the ground when she bested Azula at tumbling—pushing her down to see her fall, to hear those small, tiny shreds of whimpers as she rubbed the spots where she had fallen the hardest—Azula knew, and her cheeks flushed red and high.

"I don't understand you, Princess Azula," Ty Lee whispered, letting her leg down a fraction of an inch so that relief flooded through Azula, and it was easier to breathe again, "it's okay to ask for help. It's okay to say you need something or someone." Ty Lee deepened Azula's stretch again, and Azula's fingers gripped and shredded the grass so that she would not whimper, until dirt was pressed up under her nails. "You don't have to prove yourself all the time. I know you're not above it all." And, as if to punctuate Azula's weakness, she pulled her leg farther than they had gone before, farther than when she had done this daily with Ty Lee, and this time, Azula grunted with the pain of it.

Then Suki's voice broke through to them, broke the hard hold that Ty Lee gripped around her ankle, and Azula's leg fell to the ground with a dull thud and an even duller ache. "What's going on?"

"Nothing, Suki! I was just talking to Azula."

Suki looked skeptical, but she held out her hand for Ty Lee to hold, and they walked down to the beach and the ocean.

Azula wondered what they were saying to each other as they wandered so far. She missed the ears and eyes the Dai Li had once provided her.

"I'm surprised she takes the time," Mai said. She was polishing and whetting her knives with her small stone.

"Shut up," Azula said, her voice coming out sharp, but not sharp enough to disturbed Mai's exterior, not even sharp enough to make Mai flinch.

"Who's going to make me?" Mai raised her eyes. The knife in her hand glinted in the light. "You?"

Azula surged forward, hands already clenched, breath already settling low in her stomach as she found her root.

Mai sighed as she lounged into a fighting a stance. "Without your bending?" She languidly brought her knives in position, mirroring the exact stance she had used against Azula on that day.

"I once held off the Avatar and his gang alone during the eclipse," Azula hissed. "I had no bending."

"But you weren't alone, were you, Azula?" Mai said. Her sallow face was pinched and bitter. "You took something of mine to that fight. You took it without asking when I still would have given it to you. It didn't belong to you!"

"I'm sorry, but I have no idea what you're talking about. Perhaps you should enlighten me."

"My knife," Mai said. "You took one, and you never returned it." She looked away.

Azula's palm twitched as she remembered. She laughed, amused that Mai would be so upset about such a small thing. Of course she had taken it when Mai and Ty Lee had been arguing about her fondness for dark, gloomy robes, how Ty Lee's pink made her nauseous with its unrelenting brightness. She had slipped it then, easy as anything, just as easy as it would have been to cut Sokka's face, to give him a gift that would make even his beloved Suki turn away from him. The blind earthbender must have heard something though, because rock had hurled her off her feet, the pressure and force opening her hand so that the knife had clattered away somewhere.

Then the bending had come back, and there had been no need for knives.

"It was my knife. You could have asked for it. I would have said yes. Probably anyway."

"Princesses don't ask for things," Azula said. "They take them."

"I want it back," Mai said. "I'm sure you have it on you somewhere."

Azula smoothed her hair. "I don't have it with me. I lost it because I didn't need it."

"Of course, you lost it." Mai's voice was dull and flat as it scraped through her teeth.

"I did." Azula raised the pitch of her voice and tried on her most winning smile. "It slipped from my hand and I barely even noticed."

Mai relaxed from her fighting stance, slid her knives back into her sleeves, and reclined against the porch as she lapsed into stony, flinty silence.

Azula brushed past her, but lingered in the doorway. "I've always found this place to be depressing—you'll fit right in with the rest of the décor with a long face like that."

She didn't think Mai would have a response, so she didn't wait for one. If Mai was predictable in anything, it was with her silence.


	16. Interlude: Ember Island

_This was supposed to go up yesterday but work was really busy! My eight hour shift turned into nearly a twelve hour one, and I'm working later now so it was nearly ten pm when I managed to get home. There's another chapter coming today too. :)_

* * *

Coming to Ember Island was a family tradition. They came when the weather turned warm, when the sun was always hot and high in the sky, and when the ocean was always warm. Father told tales of his journeys to the North and Southern poles—how ice formed and how there was no such thing as swimming for pleasure, how people could die from the cold of those waters long before they drowned. There was no danger of freezing to death at Ember Island, of course.

Azula liked how the steam rose from the waters, especially near the hot mountains, the ones that always seemed to be waiting to erupt in fire and flame—ready to claim the world with red hot heat and then cold black stone, an immortalized scar.

The fringe of mountains surrounding Ember Island was beautiful. This was the time of year she looked forward to the most. She had told Mai and Ty Lee about it, about their home, about the water. Just way until you see it, she had said, because none of them had gone before. And then they couldn't come at all.

It was impossible to sleep when there was so much to look forward to, which was why she was already on the deck of their ship, even though morning was still just a glow on the horizon. Azula juggled balls of fire as she paced the deck of their father's ship, waiting for Mom or Dad or Zuko to wake up their lazy bums and come out and do something fun or interesting or whatever.

If she had been allowed to bring Ty Lee or Mai, she wouldn't be bored. They woke early and eager every day. But this had been Mom's idea of a punishment after the incident at school so she hadn't even been allowed to invite them to come. Azula scowled, and the fire flashed white with heat.

She laughed when the captain tried to tell her to stop, that she could burn the ship down and it would sink beneath the waves, drowning them all to their deaths. "I'm very skilled at what I do," she assured him. "There's no cause for alarm."

He was weak and a coward, and let her be with barely concealed glares. When Azula added a fourth ball of fire, she figured she had maybe ten minutes before his fear of her overpowered his fear for her father.

She smiled when she saw him disappear below. She added another ball so that when Father came back up, after had finished punishing the captain for his impudence, he would see how clever she was with her bending, how skilled she was, and how the captain truly had nothing to fear.

If she desired to burn down the ship, it would be by her intention and not by careless accident.

"Azula?" It was her mother, and not her father the captain had fetched. He was lingering behind her, face relaxing a tiny fraction. Azula could scarcely believe he had chosen to go to her mother instead of her father because surely he must know that Ursa couldn't bend, that she couldn't stop Azula if Azula did not wish to stop. Azula almost laughed.

Still, she couldn't help but look for her father beyond them. Maybe he waited in the shadows. Maybe he was just a little bit behind her. Maybe, he would still come.

The fire faltered for a moment, losing their shape as they hissed and smoked and sparked. Azula snuffed them out quickly even as Ursa flinched back. "Scared of a little fire, Mom?"

Ursa gestured for the captain to leave, and he did. "Azula—why are you doing this, alone without supervision? Do you have so little regard for the wellbeing of your family? For the lives of the crew?"

"I had it under control," Azula said, smoothing her hair with her palms. "Didn't you see?" Would it be so terrible for her mother to recognize her talent and skill? How many girls could do what she did? How many still struggled with even the most rudimentary firebending techniques? "It wasn't even hard."

She should be proud of her instead of telling her she shouldn't do this or she shouldn't do that like she was an incompetent child.

"That's not the point, Azula. You have a responsibility to others to be safe with your bending—not to put people at risk."

Azula rolled her eyes. "Nobody is in danger from me."

"You were making the captain uncomfortable, Azula," Ursa said. "This is his ship, and you need to listen to him. You need to respect him."

Azula laughed. "I thought this was our ship? Doesn't it have our insignia on it? The captain should be thrilled to be employed by us, to work on a ship as fine as this because it's ours. Not his."

"This ship is technically Firelord Azulon's. But even so, it might not be the captain's in name, but it is in every other way that matters. While he is captain, you must listen to him."

Azula held her arms to her chest. "It should be our ship and not Grandfather's. He never takes trips anymore. He's too old and frail."

"Why do you say such things?"

"Because they're true. He never goes anywhere. He never says anything. He never does anything." She leaned into her mother and smiled up at her. "He's lost his fire even if he can still bend. But Dad hasn't."

"We're not discussing this again." Ursa's voice was tight as she drew away from her daughter. "I feel like all our conversations end like this."

"But you know I'm right," Azula said, still clinging to her mother's hand. She wore her sleeves long, even though it was hot, and she wondered if she still bore those scars. Would she still wear long sleeves even when they landed on Ember Island, refusing to swim? Refusing to come out at all? Always, always hiding?

"You shouldn't be worrying about this, Azula."

"I'm not worried. I'm just looking forward to a time where we won't have problems. I'm being practical."

"Your grandfather isn't a problem to be solved," Ursa said. "He's family."

"Just because someone is family doesn't mean that they can't be bad for you. That they can't hurt you. Even if they don't mean to. Even if it's an accident." Azula held her mother's gaze. She knew she was right. She knew what she had seen from before, the smoke twisting through her sleeve, when they were supposed to be drinking tea. She couldn't pretend that she didn't know what Azula was talking about. She couldn't pretend that she didn't know that this was the only way to make it better.

"You shouldn't say such things, Azula." But Ursa's eyes were on the sea and not on Azula. Her words were distant, like she didn't mean them.

Azula stamped her foot and folded her arms. "I'm not afraid like you." She hated being surrounded by all this water. Water didn't burn unless the fire was hot enough to scorch it into air. One day, her fire would be hot enough to do that. She'd turn this giant sea into a desert crusted in salt.

"Who's bad for you, Azula?"

"Nobody," Azula said.

Ursa sighed.

Azula summoned more fire, trying to make the ball so tight and controlled that no flickering flames escaped, concentrating on making it so hot it'd flash white with a blue heart. But then she burned her palm, and let it go. "You should have let me bring Mai and Ty Lee along. It's so boring here without them. Zuko is no fun at all."

"From what I understand, you three are quite the terror at school. Maybe you need a break from each other."

Azula rolled her eyes.

"I'm serious, Azula. You shouldn't treat your classmates the way you do—or your friends. Mai and Ty Lee don't deserve that. You can't use them for your power plays."

"My friends love the way I treat them. I make them feel special and important. I would have thought you'd say that's a good thing. I'm the best thing that's every happened to them."

"I don't believe you." Ursa's voice was quiet.

"I'm the only one who's ever noticed them," Azula protested. "They'd do anything for me."

Azula didn't recognize the expression in Ursa's face when she turned towards her. "But would you do anything for them?"

"Why does that matter?"

Ursa looked down at Azula with her sad eyes and her sad face. "It just does."

"But why?"

Ursa pinched the bridge of her nose as she bowed her head. "It matters because you need to expect the same things from yourself as you do your friends, otherwise you're just being selfish." She shook herself, as if she could separate herself from the discussion, brush it from her like dust. Then she smiled at Azula. "Why don't you join me and your father and your brother in a few minutes? We'll eat a little something, alright?"

And then she was gone, leaving Azula alone on the deck. The wind mussed her hair after she had so carefully combed it to perfection. "I don't care," Azula said. "I don't."

Azula did not go down to join the others, and they did not rejoin her on the deck. Instead, she paced a circle until one of the sailors shouted, and she saw Ember Island as a smudge on the horizon. They would be there in a few hours, and make themselves at home. Li and Lo had gone ahead of the family, as they always did, in order to prepare their house. The curtains had been lifted, the white coverings pulled from the furniture, and neatly folded away somewhere that was of no concern for Azula.

After they had landed, Azula raced towards their house, standing in front of the doors with her arms wide, her hands stretched out and striped by shadows, her fingertips blushing towards the sun. She breathed deeply, felt her chi flow through her, felt her breath in her stomach, waiting to be heated to flame that she might roar like a tigerdillo-and so she did.

Flame licked from her mouth, and she laughed.

"Azula!" Zuko said, appearing from behind her, with his face slack in awe. "Do that again!"

And Azula did, trying to get the flames even hotter so that it was perfect—not just almost perfect.

"Can you teach me how to do that?"

"Why would I want to teach you?" Azula said, even though she was already kicking his feet into the proper position, her hands tapping his shoulders so they stood broad and free, opening his chest and stomach so that he could deepen his breath.

She resumed her own stance, and he mirrored her. "Because you're the perfect teacher. No one else our age can do anything like it yet. No wonder Dad says you're a prodigy."

"You ready?" she said. "Are you watching carefully?" She breathed deep, tilted her head back, and roared. She steadied her breath with a downward motion of her palms before bowing to Zuko. "Now give it your best try."

Zuko took several steadying breaths, but the way he held his body was so stiff he locked the air up in his lungs instead of guiding it to his stomach to stoke his fire, and she wasn't surprised when just a wispy flame, surrounded by pale furls of smoke, escaped his lips.

"Father's not going to be impressed with that," Azula said.

Zuko turned and kicked the front door with his foot. "It always comes so easy to you!"

"Oh stop being such a baby," Azula said, scowling, as she pulled him from the shadow their house cast and set him square in the sunlight again. "You don't see me practicing because I'm up at twilight, waiting for the dawn. You'd know that firebenders rise with the sun, if you knew anything at all. I've been working on this for a long time," she said, warm surges of pride rising through her like fire. "And it's going to be perfect when we perform for father and show him how much we've learned. He'll see my time at the Fire Nation Academy for Young Women hasn't been wasted. He'll be so proud of me. And you-if you're able to keep up."

"Dad is already proud of you," Zuko said, glowering. "I've heard what he's said about you. It's like you're his only child."

Azula kicked at a stone and pretended not to care, but her cheeks still flushed all the same.

Zuko slouched behind her. "He says you were born lucky." He flopped to the ground, his fists shielding his eyes from the sun. "And that I was lucky to be born."

"Lucky?" She sat down beside him. "Lucky?" Her fingers flexed against her thigh before nervously combing through the hair that framed her face. "I practice hard every day to be who I am." Her eyes shifted side to side as she considered the sunlight falling on the beach, the sparkle of the ocean blinding her sight. Lucky. Her mouth twisted against her teeth. He didn't understand. He didn't understand anything!

"It's so easy for you," Zuko said. "There's no denying that. You're just. You're just better. You get things more quickly. It's like you already know something instead of nothing."

"But I work hard to be perfect. It's not lucky—it's—"

"It's getting up with the sun?"

"Yes," Azula said. "It is."

Zuko was silent, until his foot nudged hers. "He still likes you better. Your bending. It's the only time he smiles."

Azula folded her arms tight across her chest. "That's not good enough."

"It's more than he's ever said about me," Zuko said. "Nothing I do will make Dad happy with me. And I don't know why."

Azula rolled her eyes. Of course Zuko didn't understand what was going on right in front of them. Of course he wouldn't understand the way his father, his uncle, his family interacted and how it would affect them in turn. That's why—that's why everything would be better when their father became Firelord. Zuko would be his heir, and his father would look at Zuko like that, in that way that Zuko craved, and everyone would be happy and strong.

But to be Firelord, to take over after their father, Zuko would have to be a better bender. Only the greatest benders were Firelords, which was another reason why Father deserved to be the Firelord over their Uncle Iroh. Dragon of the West-ha!

Father had never been given a chance to prove his worth now that the dragons were all gone. It wasn't fair.

Zuko couldn't be stuck in the same position when the time came.

"Azula?" Zuko said, tugging at her sleeve.

She jerked her arm away. She wasn't done thinking yet.

"Azula, what's going on?" He was leaning against her, concerned for her, like any big brother would be. She stared at him for a moment. Big brother. Sometimes it seemed the other way around.

"Shut up, and listen to me. We're going to train together, you and me, and we're going to show father that you're a—" she couldn't say a great bender because nobody was as great as she—"a bender that he can be proud of." Someone whom he wouldn't be ashamed to name his heir, when the time came.

"You'd do that for me?"

Azula smiled at him. "Of course I'd do that for you. Isn't that what brothers and sisters are supposed to do?" Maybe Mom would look at her like she was a person instead of something to be stopped if she saw Azula helping Zuko. Maybe she'd sit with her at the turtle-duck pond. Maybe she'd pull her in close, like she'd seen her do with Zuko when they were walking, their hands slipped together. She'd kiss Azula's forehead, her hands framing her face, and she'd tell her what a good sister she'd been to her brother, and that she was proud of her, and that she loved her. Azula swallowed hard and looked back at Zuko, who stared at the green grass at his feet, at the smudge of green stain on his red boots as he bit his lips. "What's wrong, dum-dum? Everything's going to be fine."

"I just—" Zuko sighed, covering his eyes with his hands. "I just think that Dad should already be proud of me. Like I'm here, and I'm his son. That's enough for Mom. Why not for Dad?"

Azula scoffed. "Mom doesn't like you just because you're her son. If that were true she'd treat me like you but she doesn't. She sees something in you that Dad doesn't see—she likes how kind and soft you are. Lose that, you lose her pride, her love. Dad needs somebody tough and strong that can follow in his footsteps."

"Someone like you," Zuko said.

"You think I'm tough and strong, big brother?" Azula wondered if he'd heard their parents discussing her exploits at school with her elite cohort of friends. She hoped he had.

"I can't imagine anybody tearing you down," Zuko said. He pulled her hand in his, and clutched her fingers until her bones hurt. "But Mom loves you too, Azula. I know she does."

She pried her hand out of his and pushed him hard so that he fell over, landing hard on his shoulder. "Azula! What was that for?"

"Weren't you listening? You have to toughen up." She got to her feet and pulled her brother up after her. "We start at dawn tomorrow. Don't be late—you know how I hate waiting, and the sun waits for no one."

She needed air to breathe—space to think. It would be easier if Mai and Ty Lee were here. She could talk to them, and they would keep her secrets because they wanted the same things Azula did. But her mother hadn't allowed them to come, and their absence made her flesh itch, made her acutely aware of the skin on her hands, the way the salt from the ocean still managed to land on her, blown in from the wind; how her hair, only brushed and brushed and brushed again, was tangled by that same breeze; how heavy her clothes were even though she wore a simple, light tunic edged with gold flame.

She swung towards the beach, grass whisper-soft under her feet. She needed to comb her hair, stroke after stroke reaching from the top of her head to the last fluttering ends in a single movement. She needed the scrape of the fine ivory comb inlaid with jade pulling her back into her skin so that it fit her comfortably once more.

Ty Lee did it just right, with just the right amount of force, going harder when Azula told her to. Li and Lo never listened when she asked them to comb it right. They just shook their heads, and told her they had combed the heads of many princesses, and they knew how to do it just fine.

She rolled her eyes. Those women thought she was so fragile, what did they know? They were the fragile ones. She could burn the flesh off their bones if she chose to and they could do nothing to stop her.

She heard voices as she approached the beach, and so she slipped a little closer to the ground, hugging the ridge of rocks that reached towards the sea. The rough surface scraped her skin, leaving fine, red scratches across her cheek.

It was her mother, and it was Li and Lo. They lounged in the shadow of an umbrella, and Ursa held a bouquet of fire lilies in her hands while Li, sitting on her left, plucked the red petals until their laps were graced with their tattered remains.

Azula could smell the bruised blossoms from where she hid, and she pressed her palm against her mouth and nose to keep from sneezing. Then she thought it wasn't fair-if her mother had found her doing that she would have told her to stop. But now, she said nothing.

"We are very concerned for Azula's well being," Li said after she had plucked the last flower and all that remained were green stems.

Azula bit her lip as she watched and listened. She hated how they always talked about her when she wasn't there. It wasn't fair.

"Azula is—" Ursa began, licking her teeth with her tongue—"as she always is and has always been and will always be."

Li and Lo exchanged a glance over Ursa's head, their mouths turned down unhappily.

"Azula has changed," Lo said.

"She is deeply troubled," Li said.

Azula would have raspberried behind the rocks if she had wanted to betray her position—but she wanted to hear more.

"She has always been—something's always been wrong with that child," Ursa said, letting the stems drop from her hand. "She's sneaky. She's greedy. She's cruel. She hurts the turtle-ducks, and I believe she is beginning to hurt people at the school. It's like she's a little monster. I am deeply concerned for Mai and Ty Lee."

"She never used to do such things," Li said, hand tentative on Ursa's shoulder.

"She has always had the capability of it—I saw, even when she was a baby. She didn't cry, and she was bending before she could crawl. She would burn the green leaves, laughing delightedly and showing them to me, these charred, burned things that left ash on my hands. She had no regard for them—for their beauty. Just like she has no regard for anything or anyone." She bowed her head. "Perhaps it was my fault. I never wanted a second child, but—Ozai insisted."

Azula stiffened in the bushes after she heard those words. Her fingers reached for the fringe of her hair, straightening it so that it was perfect, so that she was perfect in every way.

"But Azula is a beautiful girl," Li crooned. "You should be proud of her."

"Sometimes she says things." Ursa stared into her lap, her teeth biting into her lip. "Sometimes she says things, and I don't know where they came from. They are thoughts that would not occur to me. Or to Zuko."

"She is just a child," Lo said. "She doesn't know what she says."

"She says things like Ozai says." Ursa's hand crept over her sleeve, holding the place where Ozai had touched her. "And she means them, like he does."

Azula's chest went tight.

"It isn't surprising," Lo said, combing her fingers through her mother's hair. "She is her father's daughter. It's only natural for children to look up to their parents, and to speak as they do. After all, doesn't Zuko speak your words?"

Azula rolled her eyes. It's why Zuko was so soft, not tough like her or like father. They'd never survive without people like them.

"I wish she spoke like me," Ursa said. "I wish I looked into her face and saw myself somewhere there."

"You are there," Li and Lo said together. "Azula loves you very much. We see it every time she looks at you or speaks of you. Every time she bends we can see it."

Ursa looked up with a smile that did not grace her eyes. "Are you sure?"

"Of course we're sure," Li and Lo said, each one of them patting one of Ursa's cheeks.

There was a pause where Ursa searched their faces, as if she did not believe them, and Azula figured she had little reason to. Azula had often suspected that Li and Lo would sometimes lie. They were old crones who had lived in the palace since their youth. They knew the right words to say, the right words to protect them, those lying old women.

Azula coughed and scrambled over the ridge of rocks, landing in the soft sand as it ploofed over her shoes. "What sort of secrets are you whispering together?" She stepped lightly on her feet as she went closer to the three of them. "Can you tell me?"

"Not everything is palace intrigue, Azula," Ursa said heavily, shadowing her eyes with her hand. "Why can't you ask about things other children ask about? Ask us if we're going out today, if we will treat you to sugared fruit, or if you can play in the water until the sun sets."

Azula smiled at her. "But I already know I can have those things, that I can do those things. I don't have to ask about things I already know."

"So you knew that we were going to see the Ember Island Players?" Ursa said, her lip curling.

Li and Lo exchanged a glance over Ursa's head. They were surprised. There had been no such plans. Ursa had made it up, right there, on the spot.

"Do not forget about the portrait that Lord Ozai has arranged to be painted later this afternoon," Li and Lo said softly.

"We can do both," Ursa said. "There will be time for both activities."

Something tense thrilled deep in Azula's stomach, in the place where she centered her bending. Her skin thrummed with it, sparking and cackling like lightening. Mom was trying to break her root, to decenter her. To surprise her. It was a game, a duel of words since Mom couldn't bend at all. Azula could do that, too, and she stepped forward delightedly, her hands clasped behind her back. "We go see the Players every year. Of course we would go this year as well. Though I can't imagine why we bother—it's not as if they're talented. I could put on a better show in my sleep."

"Just make sure you're ready to go," Ursa said as her eyes closed. "The painter will be here soon."

Azula took it as a concession of defeat. "I am always punctual, but I'll be sure to pass the message to Zuko." Azula turned to go, but then looked back. Ursa had lifted her head, eyes locked on her. "Love you, Mom."

Ursa's mouth dropped slightly. Did Azula imagine the way her breath caught in a tiny gasp as her eyes widened? Azula listed the questions she could be thinking: how much had Azula heard, how much did she know, what would she say, to whom would she say it?

Azula waited for her mother to say something, to say anything, but she did not. So Azula left before the silence between them grew too long and too heavy, and she scowled as she did.


	17. Nothing is Simple

The knife was gone, according to Azula. But Azula always lied.

Unless the truth would hurt more.

Maybe the knife was still in the underground tunnels, where the Firelord had taken refuge—the one guarded with a pit of lava that wouldn't pose a problem for a bender but for someone like Mai—

The downward pull of her mouth weighed heavily on her. Azula was right in that it was just a knife, nothing special about it, just one in a long line of ones that Mai used for skill, for violence, for the calming motion of turning it over and over, whetting her precision and her persistence.

Azula had taken one and lost it because she did not care for something so small and inconsequential as one of Mai's things.

Mai got up after Azula had left her behind on the steps, and wandered down the path Ty Lee and Suki had taken. Suki should not have come with them. She interfered, a presence that didn't so much douse a fire as let it smolder and burn.

Mai caught up with them on the beach. They had stripped out of their things (neatly folded on the sand), and they splashed in the water, laughing like they were on vacation, like they were happy.

They noticed her frowning soon enough. Suki quickly abandoned Ty Lee, surging through the low waves and the warm water. "Where's Azula?" she called.

Mai shrugged, and Suki pushed past her, still wet as she wrung out her short hair. "We can't leave her alone, not for a moment—she cannot escape!"

"We could all go home if she did," Mai said.

Ty Lee sighed, dramatically. "It was your idea to come, Mai. We're in this together." She twisted water from her braid. "Why are you so unconcerned?"

"Because I'm not her jailer," Mai said. "And because this idea was stupid anyway. I can't believe Zuko agreed to it." She couldn't believe she had encouraged him to agree. She knew it would be unpleasant being with Azula, but she hadn't been expecting it to be like this. In her head, she had imagined she would handle Azula being Azula much better than she actually was. She had not imagined it would be so hard, that it would hurt so much.

"You're just having regrets," Ty Lee said. She went back into the water, started to splash around like she was some kid trying to get her wet. Mai stepped carefully out of reach of her antics. "The water will wash your negative energy away! We'll come back refreshed, ready to try again with Azula. I still believe we can be friends, once we figure everything else out. I know it won't be the same, but I also know that it will be better. We just need to give ourselves time."

Mai felt the familiar bitterness pucker her mouth. "Azula was never our friend. Friends don't steal each other's things and then lose them without even realizing the thing was lost."

"Azula will be our friend like she was once, a long time ago," Ty Lee said. Her smile was fixed on her face, her breathing shallow. "Why else are we here if not to heal together? We talked about this, Mai."

"Friends don't put each other in jail," Mai said. "Friends don't put apples on their heads and then see if they can burn it and only it. Friends don't push you down when you've done something better. She was never our friend. She never will be."

Ty Lee came out of the water and walked towards Mai so she could slip her wet hand in hers, pulling her close. "You're hurt."

"I'm not hurt." Mai didn't pull Ty Lee closer but she didn't try pushing her away either. "I'm just telling the truth. You shouldn't be so nice to her. I don't understand why you are. This is exactly what she wants."

"I'm nice because I'm a nice person. That's who I am! But just because I'm nice doesn't mean I'm stupid." Ty Lee scoffed, shaking her head so that her braid flung water into Mai's face. "Azula always had you fooled, and herself fooled, but never me."

Mai looked at Ty Lee then. "Fooled about what?"

Ty Lee tugged at Mai's robes. "Take this off, and come in the water with me."

"No," Mai said. "Tell me."

"I'll tell you when you're in the water with me." Ty Lee's eyes were bright and soft as her fingers curled in the cloth of Mai's sleeve. "Your aura is always so gloomy, but it's gotten thunderous ever since we started this journey. The water will help, I promise."

Mai rolled her eyes, but complied. She let Ty Lee help lift her clothes over her head until she stood shivering, bare toes curled in the sand. Ty Lee pulled her into the water, already warming under the rising sun. She pulled her deeper and deeper, until she had to tread water to keep afloat. "Tell me, Ty Lee."

Ty Lee pulled herself so that she floated on her back, hands resting on her belly, legs kicking languidly. "She fooled herself into thinking that we needed her," she said. "That we needed her to be somebody. I remember you—the poor sad kid standing in the shadows, bored and wanting something to distract you from looking inwards. Azula was an arresting distraction. She gave us what we thought we wanted. She was so insulted when I rejoined the circus because I didn't need station or riches to keep my aura pink." Her voice turned so quiet that Mai had to strain to hear her over the whispers of the water. "She threatened to burn it down and me with it because I didn't need what she offered anymore. Just like you didn't really need the opportunity to rebel against your parents because you did it every time you flipped your knife and said nothing even when they wanted you to speak. You don't need Azula to be happy because you're never happy, and she was maybe the first person who recognized that in you, but she wasn't the last was she?"

Mai's mouth twisted as she chewed on her lip.

"I've known this ever since she let me win because she needed me to think that I was indebted to her. But the real truth, Mai, is that she needs us more than we need her. It's always been like that. Why do you think she always surrounds herself with nonbenders? She's just—" and here Ty Lee giggled and the water spilled over her stomach as she struggled to keep afloat—"she's just an incredibly good liar. Especially when she's lying to herself."

"If you knew all that then why did you deal with it?"

"She's a princess of the Fire Nation," Ty Lee said. "She's always had more power than us—in more ways than one. But I knew I could take at least one part of her power away if I ever needed to. Not the power she had to throw us in prison or the power to shoot lightening at us, but I knew the realization that we didn't need her like she needed us would destroy her." Ty Lee let herself fall into the water so that she could look Mai in the eyes. "And I was right, wasn't I?"

Mai shook her head. "I don't get it. Maybe I'm not as sure about Azula as you, but I still don't understand why you care so much."

Ty Lee faltered for the first time. She sucked on her lips and ducked her head under the water, resurfacing behind Mai so that she could press her palm into the curve of her spine and dip her until it was Mai who was floating on her back, skimming the surfaces of the ocean. The water lapped into Mai's ears, carrying the soft trill of Ty Lee's voice. "It's nice to be needed. That someone so powerful like Azula could be so weak, and could need so much, the fire of that need directed towards me, towards you." She shook her head, her eyes closed. "And it won't be the same, Mai. Nothing will ever be the same again, but that doesn't mean we can't still be friends. Just-different friends in a different way. I care because no matter what, Azula will always be a part of our lives, even if we say goodbye to her and to everything we had, to everything we could have together. I have to try."

"If you're not careful, Azula's going to hurt you again."

"It's like a dance, isn't it? All our fights are just that, a dance. She lashes out, and I cower. When she's not looking, I touch her there—" Ty Lee's fingers drifted to the same spot on Mai's side that she had jabbed in that terrible moment at the prison, and Mai's flesh shivered—"and she falls, unable to bend, wondering how this could be, how this could happen. She lashes out again, and I duck around her, offering her a kindness. She turns away and I turn with her and we're side by side, looking at each other. It's power, I think. Not the power of a princess, but it's enough to bring Azula to her knees."

"So this is just a field trip to see how far Azula will humiliate herself?" Mai had been humiliated by Azula many times—it was a running theme in the family, humiliation. Zuko himself bore the scar of it—and it was something that both tempted her and repelled her. She remembered, again, the thrills she felt when she witnessed Azula humiliating a hapless victim, how glad she had been to see it. Guilt settled low in her stomach, and she sighed.

"No," Ty Lee was saying. "No, I don't think so."

"Then what?"

Ty Lee closed her eyes, and fell back into the water so that she floated beside Mai. "I don't know. I just know that it's not the same. And that things will be different. I need Azula to know that it will never go back to what it was before. That she can never have the power over us that she had before. But once she knows that, once she understands, we can be friends once this is over. Not the games we play, but real friendship."

"It'll never happen," Mai said. "And maybe you can give her that second chance, but I can't. I'm only here for Zuko."

"That's okay," Ty Lee whispered. "I never asked you to. We can still be friends, can't we, even if I want to be friends with Azula too?"

"Of course, we can," Mai said, closing her eyes against a too-bright sun.

Ty Lee wrapped her hands around Mai's wrists and tugged her back towards the shore. "It's such a small word, friendship. I don't think there's a word that exists that can describe what I think about you or Azula or the three of us together."

Wet beach and sand scraped against Mai's back as the waves helped push them towards the shore. Ty Lee blocked the sun as she leaned over Mai, hair on either side of her head, surf leaving bubbles against their skin. The wet rope of her braid, tie lost in the water, unraveled, dripped over everything, and Mai shivered as a warm breeze dried the water left on her.

Goosebumps followed its path, and she wished for a towel, a blanket, or to return to the house where it wasn't so bright and the breeze could not pass beyond the walls.

"We should go back," Mai said.

Ty Lee stood up and offered her hand to Mai. "That sounds like a great idea."

Mai took the proffered hand and allowed Ty Lee to brush the sand off her before returning the favor.

"I'm kind of glad that Azula decided to take us to Ember Island," Ty Lee said, slipping her hand in Mai's. "Li and Lo were right—it's a magical place, a place of healing, of scraping off every last bit of negative energy and letting the water take it away. It's like the world stands still in this bubble of peace."

"Nothing is as peaceful as wrecking someone's house."

Ty Lee laughed merrily at that. "They deserved it."

"I don't hate it here," Mai said. "But I don't want to stay."

"I don't think we'll be here much longer," Ty Lee said. "Just until Azula decides she can't give us the slip."

"I almost hope she does."

"Would you go after her?" Ty Lee said, "or would you go back to the palace?"

Mai considered. She had followed Azula for so long—it would be like falling back into a familiar march to follow her again, just as she had feared. She shook her head. But Ty Lee was right, it wouldn't be the same. If Azula did run, they would be chasing her, not following her. She could put her hands in Azula's perfect hair, wrench her back, and tell her no, she couldn't just leave, she couldn't just use them again and leave—and she'd be able to do it this time without being burned, without being told to sit still, without being told to be silent, without needing Ty Lee to rescue her again. "I'd go after her," Mai said.

Ty Lee smiled at her, hands clenched over her heart. "I'm so glad we're friends."


	18. Games They Play

The inside of what had once been their summer house looked as if there had been a fight of some kind. Scorch marks, similar to burns left by her brother's work, blackened what had once been the finest paper, made with silver and gold thread. Chairs and other furniture had been knocked away and toppled over—maybe from airbending. She couldn't tell who won, and if some of the damage was caused by airbending, it didn't really make sense. She had seen both Zuko and Aang embrace as friends, hadn't she?

Maybe there hadn't been a winner in this fight, and if that were the case, then what had been the point?

Azula rolled her eyes, skipping the rooms where she and Zuko had once slept, the kitchen with nothing but stale spices and moldering rice, the room with the low table where they had eaten their cakes and drunk their tea. Instead, she went directly towards her parents' chambers, going quickly to get this over with. At least what had happened yesterday didn't seem to be happening again. Not yet, anyway.

Thick scarlet draperies hung from the windows, and the bed, vast enough for two people to sleep side by side without touching, took up the corner of the room. Red veils, more cobweb than thread, fluttered from the corners. The gold filigree, emblazing fire emblems on the wood, was tarnished and old, smudged with dust, dirt, and age.

It was hard to breathe here: the cloistered walls rose above her, and everything felt so much smaller than she remembered. She forced her breaths to come in a steady rise and fall as she bent over a chest that held what remained of value to their family. There were family portraits inside, but she didn't look at them, putting them aside because they couldn't possibly tell her where Mom could have gone upon her exile.

But where could she have gone? She had no allies outside the Fire Nation, and her father and the events surrounding Azulon's death, the passing of the crown to Ozai instead of to Uncle Iroh, would have caused too much fear for anyone to dare help her.

How closely would Ozai have spared men to make sure she stayed away? Had he given her a ship as he had done for Zuko? Had she slipped out into the night on foot?

Azula lifted a painting of her mother. She was cradling someone—a baby, Zuko beside her, holding her hand, his head tipped up, trying to look at the baby's face.

She almost didn't recognize Zuko without his scar. She put her fingertips over his left cheek, tracing where it would have been if he were here with her now.

She figured that the baby Mom was holding was her, shortly after she was born, perhaps. She held her in one hand, while the other held Zuko. She held Azula distantly—not far enough away as to endanger her, but just enough that it didn't look as if she were being really held—merely supported so that she would not fall.

Azula crumpled the canvas and tossed it away.

Maybe Zuko had had the right idea to burn it, burn it all.

That was crazy. That was usually her idea, not his. What was happening to her?

She searched until the box was empty, until she found the bottom with the velvet worn thin, eaten by age and dust and bugs. If there had been anything here, it had been taken by Zuko or pilfered by looters who dared to root around in the secondary home of Firelord Ozai. How dare they.

Azula closed her eyes. Her knees ached from sitting so long, and she leaned back to relieve the pressure and the pain. She had hoped her mother's comb would still be there. It was made of ivory inlaid with jade in the shape of teardrops. Mom had combed her hair with it, had combed Azula's hair with it, preparing her for matters of state or just making sure she was presentable, like a princess should be.

One hundred strokes she would comb until it was perfect, until her hair was the most beautiful.

But it was gone now, just like Mom was gone.

She climbed back to her feet, brushing the dirt from her knees, and rubbing the aches from her muscles. She found Suki outside, back leaned against the wall, watching her like a guard watched her prisoner. How things did change. "We're leaving," Azula said.

"Did you find anything?" Suki asked.

"Nothing. We're going to Ba Sing Se."

"As tourists?" Suki's lip curled. "Or as Kyoshi Warriors?"

Azula's step hitched as she held herself very still with her head very high. "I did something no other high minded general had accomplished. I did it when I was fourteen years old, a mere girl. We did it alone and outnumbered. It was a major tactical victory." Until her uncle had taken it away with his treachery, had poisoned her brother against her.

Suki stepped in front of her, looming over her in a weak attempt to crowd her back, filling her vision so that the only way Azula could escape her gaze would be to close her eyes, which would never happen. So Azula held her breath, and stared unflinchingly at Suki and waited. "You didn't do it alone, though," Suki was saying. "And I'm not talking about Mai and Ty Lee. I'm talking about us. I'm talking about me. You used our faces, you used our clothes, and you used the trust you knew the Earth King would have given to the Kyoshi Warriors. So don't pat yourself on the back."

Azula shoved Suki out of her way. "I used the tools at my disposal."

"You used us!" Suki repeated. Her cheeks were tinged red, and Azula took secret satisfaction from that.

"It's not my fault you were too weak to defeat us. You outnumbered us two to one, at least. We should have been an easy victory if you were as skilled as you think you are!"

"You had no right to be in the Earth Kingdom," Suki hissed. "You had no right to be there, with us, fighting that day. You had no right tracking Appa—you had no right!"

Azula turned away from her. "So I took it. Just like my father took anything he ever wanted. It's what those born to rule to do. You'd understand if you were like me but you're just some peasant from a poor village with delusions of grandeur. "

"And is that who you want to be like, you father? The person who abused your brother and then attempted to murder a twelve year old boy? The person who abandoned you?"

Azula's step shuddered, but she pulled herself up, tightening her muscles in her core—not letting herself hear. Suki followed her, mouth curved downwards, eyes hard, muscles twitching and shivering. Suki was a warrior—she wanted to lash out, and Azula almost hoped she would—she hadn't had a real fight since her humiliation at Katara's hands. The shame still burned in her belly, but she could never goad it into flame. Azula curled her lip into a sneer before turning back towards Suki when she stepped onto the warm green grass, hands folded loosely over her hips, knuckles grazing the sharp edges of her bones. "Do you want to fight me? We can't do an Agni Kai of course, because you're not a firebender, but—"

"And neither are you anymore!"

"But it could be fun to settle this once and for all. Aren't you bored, following me around like you've got nothing better to do? Not that you actually do, of course."

Suki drew back, shaking her head. "I don't need to prove anything to you. You're the one who needs to prove yourself to me."

Azula tipped her head back and laughed. "What do I need to prove to you? I conquered your precious Kingdom. I defeated you and your warriors. I am a princess of the Fire Nation and who are you? I have nothing to prove to you."

Suki pulled up short, her hand hiding her face even as her shoulders sagged. "You have a lot to prove, Azula. You have to prove that your desire to restore your honor is genuine—no one believes that's what you really want to do. We know you're going to ditch us the moment you think it's safe to do so—safe from us, safe from Avatar Aang, safe from your brother. The only reason you wait is because you don't want to be publicly humiliated again, brought back as a prisoner to your own palace, to be held in your own jail cell as your father. The only reason Zuko let you come is because he believes in second chances—because he was given more than one by the Avatar. I don't know what will happen to you if this mission fails and you continue on as you have done, but I know you will not be given another chance. This is it, Azula. Why are you so intent on wasting it?"

Azula's skin flared, flushed and hot, and she stepped towards Suki. "I'm hearing a lot of ultimatums from someone who doesn't get a say about what happens to me. But I'm not like darling Zuzu—everyone was so eager to give him a second chance, and then another second chance, and then another and another. Why, every time he made a mistake, there was someone offering him a second chance, offering him mercy, offering him forgiveness." Except for one person. But Suki didn't need to know about that. Azula's smile twisted around her cheeks. "If only I could be so lucky, but it's a good thing I don't need it." She stopped, the words seared against her tongue, her teeth, hands twisting knots in her clothes and reaching deeper for her skin, to twist and pull until she could find the smoldering embers of her bending and stoke it back to life. "I've worked hard to be who I am, and that's made me strong."

Suki sighed. The anger had spent itself. "I don't know why you're resisting so hard when we're just trying to help you."

Azula's breath hitched in her chest, caught against her ribs, never quite making it to her mouth. Dizziness and lightness fuzzed her vision, and she stumbled as her ankle twisted beneath her weight, throwing her off balance. Her heart wrenched as her limbs fell into the habits and patterns she had knit together, back when she had once trusted her body, trusting it to save her even when she was tricked by her enemy, as Aang had once tried to trick her into falling to her doom when they had first met, before enemies and friends had joined against her. Traitors! But her body had saved her then too, the body she'd forged from fire and steel. Now her limbs were tired, weak and trembling with something that itched and burned under her skin. Her ankle ached. "Only weak people need help," Azula said. "Are we're going to Ba Sing Se, or would you rather spend the rest of our days talking about it like we're friends?"

When Suki had nothing to say to that, they went back to the beach to fetch Ty Lee and Mai, who were together in the surf. Azula watched them, bitterness twisting inside, as she watched them rise and come towards them, hand in hand. They went back to the boat, and set sail, and Azula watched Ember Island disappear.

The trip to Ba Sing Se would not be easy, it would not be quick.

When Azula woke in the morning to the swaying of the ship on the waves, she fingered the knots, hard as stones themselves, that had knit together between her shoulders as she had slept, exhausted at the end of every day. The wind chapped her skin, scabbing her knuckles over until they split red and raw, making it difficult for her to flex her fingers without bloodying them, even though it had been too long since had thrown a physical blow. She rubbed balm into them to ease the pain and discomfort.

Ty Lee cared for Mai's hands, pulling her long gloves off, warming a little balm with her palms cupped close before smoothing it into Mai's skin in small circles. Ty Lee's fingers were long, delicate, nimble as she massaged each of Mai's fingers, her thumbs lingering around her knuckles, rubbing up towards her wrist until she rubbed new life into them, pushing the blue flush of cold into one that turned red and rosy.

Azula scoffed in disgust as she turned away.

She missed when they had traveled before. True, she had abandoned the royal procession in favor of a small, elite team, but they hadn't been reduced to four dirty girls with blistered hands, ragged garments, and tempers striking against each other like spark rocks as they complained about how Mai always burned the rice, how Ty Lee was always too cheerful, how Mai's perpetual frowning made everything that much harder to bear, how they would not even be in this position if it were not for Azula.

"Go back home if you want," Azula said, spreading her arms wide. "I assure you, I am not stopping you."

There would be silence, and they would never take her up on it. They would start working together, at least for a time. They were afraid to let her go by herself. No matter how much she egged them on, they would never leave of their own volition.

Suki always took charge at the end of the day. It nettled Azula, though there was little she could do about it, so she waited.

"Mai, food—" even though Suki knew Mai didn't do it right. "Ty Lee, water. Azula and myself will build the fire for the rice." Azula soured, flexing her fingers, still unable to bend fire, still betraying her with their uselessness.

Suki did this on purpose. Never letting her go by herself to do anything, always making sure she was the one who tended the fire. It was a taunt, a low blow, and one day, Azula would make her pay.

Suki struck the spark rocks three times before they lit, and together Suki and Azula coaxed it to consume the damp fuel with their hot breaths. Mai began to cook their rice in the water that Ty Lee brought to boil while Suki prepared the tea and Azula tended the fire, stoking here, and tossing fuel there, making sure it received enough air to truly live but not enough to completely wipe out the newborn flames.

It must have been like this with her brother and the Avatar, Azula thought. Zuko, standing stationary, while the Avatar, the last airbender, gave him breath, making him burn as brightly or as fiercely as he willed.

"Azula," Mai said.

She should have seen it earlier.

She should have seen it in his eyes as Zuko made his final choice in Ba Sing Se—to stand beside her or to stand against her. Even then it hadn't been about her or their father, but about the Avatar, about his honor.

"Azula," Mai said again.

She spread her hands, palms close over the fire. Lightening had come from her, had shot the Avatar, a boy only a little younger than her. Why had she tried to kill him? Sometimes it felt as if she remembered the moments before and after, and sometimes it felt like she didn't. What had she been thinking in that scarce space of time? She didn't know. She closed her eyes, and considered again what had happened. There had been a great light coming from the Avatar. She had been standing still, watching. Then the light cracked around him, through him. Smoke twisted from her two fingers, and she smiled as the Avatar fell because they had won, because her father would be so proud, because she had done what Zuko could not, because people died in wars all the time-she had known this even when she was small.

But then he had come back, like so many had never come back.

No wonder her father had been so angry with her.

"Azula," Mai said, and this time she kicked at Azula's foot with her own, and Azula snatched her hands—warm and dry and cracked like cured leather—away from the fire, to take the steaming bowl of singed rice that Mai had prepared for them.

She accepted as Mai let her hands fall away, so that the bowl fell into Azula's palms as opposed to her taking it from Mai. The bowls were small and hands could so easily brush against each other. What a terrible thing to happen, that they should accidentally touch.

Ty Lee sat beside Azula, the fire flushing her skin orange so that it looked like she might have an aura if those things actually existed. "What were you thinking about, Princess Azula?" she asked, her chin braced on her fists, legs crossed at the knee, a smile hovering around her lips.

Azula blinked at the fire, Ty Lee's voice trilling in her ear. Princess Azula, Princess Azula, Princess Azula. "You know, the usual things. Dominating the world, humiliating our enemies. Things we used to do all the time together, you and me and Mai. I suppose that leaves you as one of our humiliated enemies, Suki." Azula smiled at her.

Suki ignored her words, but Mai put her bowl of rice down on her knees and glared. It was a small precise gesture, like the way she folded her hands in her robe or flicked her knives. Azula looked, narrow-eyed, at her. Was she fingering her knives at this moment? Would she leave her mark on Azula? A scar over her eye, a slip of the knife scarring her perfect skin, a tug of her wrist breaking the bone, deforming it? Azula clenched her teeth together, her hands combing the snarled mess of her hair, tugging and pulling until pain lanced her scalp and the muscles in her fingers seized.

Mai said, "The Fire Nation isn't like that anymore. I'm not like that anymore."

"We cannot change our nature," Azula said. "You sound more like my brother than Mai." The girl she once had known.

Ty Lee rose to her feet, fluttering between going to Mai or returning to Azula's side. She dropped to her knees between them instead, her arms held out to each of them, as if she were offering peace to one on the other's behalf. "And sometimes," Ty Lee said, "we turn mean because we've been hurt for too long when we were too young—but we're safe now. We don't have to be like this anymore."

Azula laughed. She set her bowl of rice at her feet, still untouched, so that her hands, so eager to betray her with their jittery shaking would not give her away. "I already told you—I don't have sob stories like all of you. No one ever hurt me."

Ty Lee opened her mouth, but Mai's voice cut in first. "Zuko told me about you. Told me that Katara chained you to your knees, twisting your arms double behind your back so your chi was blocked. That fire spewed helplessly and uselessly from your mouth." Mai glanced up then. "That you sobbed and sobbed at the humiliation of your defeat." Mai sighed, then took a small bite of rice. "I wish I would have been there to see it."

"Mai," Ty Lee said, reproachfully. "Leave her alone."

"Why should I?" Mai looked at the fire, her hands cradling the bowl of rice, no longer steaming. "After causing so many other people to cry, you finally did yourself. After pushing so many people down, even Ty Lee, you finally fell down yourself." Mai looked at Ty Lee then. "Of course I would want to see something like that."

Azula latched onto Mai's words, scrabbled after them with her worn fingernails. "Why? Because even in my defeat, I'm still not like you, am I, Mai? For so long, I was everything, I consumed your thoughts and I consumed your waking moments, and I was the whole world to you—I wasn't even human, I wasn't even a person, I was Azula, a name whispered in fear. Even now my defeat is just another story looming over you, haunting you because you can't believe it until you see it. But you never will." Azula settled her limbs, crossing her legs at the knee, eyes sharp on Mai's narrow face, still like it was carved from stone. "I'll always be more than you, Mai, even in my defeat, which you never got to see. You used to want to be like me, and now you want to know that I will always be as lonely and helpless as you, but I wasn't, and I won't. You thought you had a taste when Ty Lee brought me down, but it didn't last for long, did it? I could still snap my fingers and someone put you in prison, somewhere far from your home and your family and the people you just barely managed to love."

"Hey, that's enough," Suki said,

"Do you want to hear, Mai," Azula said, ignoring Suki as the words fell hot and hard from her tongue, "how utterly miserable I was without you? How filthy your betrayal made me, how I couldn't stop washing my feet, my hands, my hair? How whenever the servants failed me, I banished them because one mishap, one careless action, could kill me like you had threatened to do? Do you want to hear how the throne room burned blue instead of red because I couldn't bear to lose the trust of those who were supposed to be my closest friends?" Her breath labored in her lungs. "I'm sorry to disappoint you, but none of that happened. I continued on my way as I always have—alone. I returned to the Firelord, saw my father off as we had both agreed it would be better if I stayed home in his absence, and, at the moment of my coronation, Zuko showed up with his friend, and I was outnumbered since I was without my elite team. It was a matter of numbers, of strategy. Even a princess knows when she has been beaten." She lifted her head high, chin jutted in the air. "You can't touch me, Mai. You never have."

Mai didn't let her eyes drop. But she did lean back after a moment, sighing. "You're lying. As always."

"As if I would lie about this."

"It's exactly the thing you would lie about. You don't know how to be honest." Mai stretched, languidly, her hands clasped behind her head. "You rewrite what happened, so you don't have to deal with it. So you see yourself as the person you want to be, instead of the person you are."

Ty Lee crept towards Azula, and folded her clenched fists into Azula's loose palms. "Oh Azula. Stop this."

"Enough," Suki said, as she rose to her feet. This time, both Mai and Ty Lee looked abashed and ashamed, but Azula didn't.

"I quite agree, Suki. Enough." Azula kicked the bowl of rice that Mai had given her across the deck, and she moved to the prow of the ship, so that the girls were behind her. A chill came from the ocean but she didn't mind, she didn't care, even though her skin pricked with goosebumps.

Azula stiffened as she felt Ty Lee's hand touch her shoulder. "Ignore them."

Azula jerked from her, and refused to turn to look at her. She was so close, she was hotter than the fire. Azula forced herself to breath.

Ty Lee leaned close, whispering her name, her breath warm against her face. "They're just giving you a hard time, and can you really blame them? It's just a game. Don't you remember the games we used to play, together? You made all the children cry because they wanted you to love them, but you wouldn't because you had us. You didn't need them, not like you needed us."

Azula did remember. Their games had been known all through the academies, and they had gotten in so much trouble, but nobody could make them stop. And she remembered Zuko crying for his mother—their mother—the morning after she had been banished, and she remembered Zuko crying when Father had come towards him without mercy, and she remembered how Uncle Iroh cried when he lost his son and his throne. "Of course," Azula said. "How could I forget?"

"You're cold," Ty Lee said, noticing her gooseflesh. She pressed herself close, her hands settling on her waist. "Let me warm you."

Azula stiffened, but did not back away. She would not let Ty Lee have the satisfaction, or give her a chance to think that she might possibly be afraid of her, after what had happened the last time Ty Lee touched her.

"Have you ever had anyone besides us?" Ty Lee asked. "A friend? A boyfriend? A girlfriend?"

Azula glanced over her shoulder towards the fire. Orange flames wrapped around the wood, blue hearted flame in their center. Her eyes stung from the smoke.

"You never had any friends, did you?" Ty Lee said. She leaned her forehead against Azula's shoulder."You only had us, but not even then, because you always thought we wouldn't do what you wanted unless you made sure we remembered who you were, Princess Azula. The one person who could banish us if she ever wanted to. Who could sever whatever bonds we formed. You made us feel special and then you made us afraid it would end."

Ty Lee removed her hands from Azula's waist so that she could slide them down Azula's bare arms. "You're so cold," Ty Lee said.

If Azula shivered, it was from the chill thick on the ocean. Not because of anything else.

"Doesn't this feel nice?" Ty Lee asked.

Azula turned so that she put her left hand on Ty Lee's shoulder, whether to push her away or to brace herself, she wasn't sure, and her limbs, her treacherous body, hesitated and hesitated and hesitated as Ty Lee waited for her to respond. "I don't need to feel nice."

"You don't need anything, do you, Azula?" Ty Lee said it sympathetically, as if she presumed to know her.

"I don't," Azula said.

"You don't need your father to wait for you. You sat at his left hand, but you don't need him to care about you like he cared about Zuko. You don't need him either, do you? It's not like you didn't chase him across four nations. It must have been easier when you could say you were seeking the Avatar—if your paths crossed what did it matter, since he also sought your prize."

"Father sent me after Zuko," Azula said. "I was fine without him, but it was Father who wanted me to bring him back so he wouldn't embarrass him anymore!"

"Because you weren't enough, were you, Azula? Not even your glory, your successes, your triumphs could banish the shadow of your brother's shame, no matter how bright and how blue and how hot it burned." Ty Lee tightened her grip around Azula's hands. "Or perhaps it's not that you weren't enough—but you were just enough. A weapon doesn't need, does it, Azula? It's just there to be used as desired. And when it's no longer needed, it's set aside and left behind."

"I know what you're doing, Ty Lee," Azula said. "You're trying to make me feel small and worthless-you're trying to mimic me, but it won't work. I know who I am, and I know what I must be."

"You don't need Li and Lo," Ty Lee continued as if Azula had not spoken. "They practically raised you because your mother was gone and your father was busy, but what does that matter? You were born grown, weren't you? You don't need them, just like you don't need us—just like you don't need this." She pressed her mouth to Azula's knuckles, kissing her there. "Or this." She pressed her mouth to Azula's cheek.

Azula could not move. She could barely think. She could barely breathe.

Ty Lee cupped Azula's face in her warm hands as she pressed another small kiss to her forehead, whispering, "Or this."

Azula shoved Ty Lee so that she stumbled back several paces-but she was spry, nimble, and did not lose her balance. She looked at Azula as if she had been slapped. "Don't you dare touch me ever again," Azula said.

Ty Lee looked at her like she had done on that day at the Boiling Rock. "You're not alone, Azula. You don't have to be alone and friendless-not anymore."

"Yes, I do!" Azula said. "You all want to see me fail. You don't want me to get my bending back. You don't want me to succeed. You wish that I had died!" Azula could barely speak around the rawness of her throat, the graveyard her mouth had become.

Ty Lee shook her head. "Whatever you want, Princess Azula." She turned and rejoined the others who were still eating.

Azula turned to face the ocean, and she wiped at her eyes with her hands. How she hated the wind, so full of salt, that made her eyes water. She couldn't wait to leave this boat. She couldn't wait to leave them all as they murmured and plotted together behind her back.


	19. Interlude: Picture Perfect

Azula tugged at the edges of her robe as she evaluated herself in the mirror. She was small and light, like one of the knives that Mai favored. She took a steadying breath, guiding it down to her stomach with her palms. Her hair wasn't quite perfect, not nearly perfect enough for a family portrait. Her mother wouldn't like it, so she undid the ribbon with a sharp tug.

Her hair fell in a dark curtain, and she ran her fingers through it. She glanced up when she saw her mother at the door, also small in her red, gold ribboned silks. She looked so elegant with her slender flame in her hair. "Azula," she said.

"Mom," Azula said right back.

Ursa drifted closer, her hand held loose beside her as she reached towards Azula, and she followed the rhythm and flow of her motion, reframing herself center in the mirror, without her mother ever having to touch her. She sighed as she peered at their reflection, shifting her gaze from side to side. "I don't think you have a bad side. The painter will have no excuses to show how lovely you are," Ursa said.

"Well, if he doesn't, I'm sure we can do something horrible to punish him."

Ursa's face fell. "Your hair isn't in its top-knot." She pulled a handful of hair into her hand, letting the fine strands flow between her fingers like water. An ivory comb inlaid with jade appeared between her fingers, from where she puled it from her robes.

Azula nodded, and Ursa sat in a chair as she gestured for Azula to sit at her feet. Azula did, resting her hands in her lap as she waited for her mother to start. Ursa gathered Azula's hair into her hand, smoothing and tugging, not hard enough to pull, not hard enough to hurt. The curve of her thumbs lightly graced the nape of her neck, sending shivers down Azula's spine. She imagined her mother wrapping her hands around her neck, pulling her from the turtle-duck pond, from Eun-jae, from her friends. "I was only joking about punishing the painter," she finally said.

Ursa sighed, softly. "I know, Azula."

It didn't sound as if she believed her. Azula leaned back to press against the shadow of her mother's knuckles, and Ursa pulled away. The scrape of the comb replaced the feather-light touch of her hands, and Azula tried again to press into the pressure of it, to feel the pull anchoring her body in her skin, feel it stitching her into place with the way it scraped her skin back, distracting her from the way her fingers tingled, how she always knew precisely how much space she took in her surroundings.

A handful of centimeters separated her back from the shins of her mother. If she could only just lean back—

"Stop squirming," Ursa said, removing the comb as she waited to be obeyed.

Azula stilled instantly, skin prickling, waiting for the comb. It came again after ten seconds—one single glide from the crown of her head to the nape of her neck and down her back.

She wished she weren't wearing her shirt so that the row of ivory teeth would graze her spine down its entire length.

"My mother used to do this for me," Ursa said eventually as she worked. "One hundred strokes, every night and every morning."

"Why did she stop?" Azula asked. "Did she die?" Had her death been expected, or had it been sudden? Had she been in pain?

Ursa's hand shuddered, then resumed its steady pace. Azula tipped her head back into the fine scrape of it, her eyes nearly closed.

"I married your father," Ursa said. "I have not been able to see her since. I am not even sure where she is anymore."

When Azula was grown, she would do as she pleased. No one would stop her. No one would tell her no. She would know everything she wanted. "Did she use a comb like this?"

Ursa laughed. "This is a comb fit for a royal family—not one my family could ever afford in their lifetime. Her comb was carved from bone and wood." She smoothed her hand down Azula's head, her palm fitting the shape of her skull.

Sometimes, Azula forgot her mother had grown up poor.

"I wish I had brought it with me," Ursa said, hands still resting on Azula's head. "I would have liked to comb your hair with it."

"But it was just a bone comb," Azula said, not daring to twist around lest her mother remove the slight pressure of her hands. "What's so special about that?"

Her mother removed her hands and let them settle in her lap. "I wouldn't expect you to understand. You've always had fine things. Everything you could possibly need or want. But when you have nothing, even the most simple thing can be a great treasure." She patted her shoulder. "Why don't you wait for the painter outside?"

Azula frowned. Why did one missing comb matter when they had everything they wanted, when they had this beautiful comb? If her mother wished, she could have a comb made entirely of jewels, but instead she wanted one made of bone. "That wasn't one hundred strokes," she said instead. "It was only eighty-six."

"Of course," Ursa murmured. She picked up the comb again and began to count her strokes, though she did not linger as she had before. She did not drag the comb from her crown to the very ends. She counted quickly under her breath.

Azula should have lied. She should have said it was seventy. That it was fifty.

Then she tied the top knot with her skilled fingers until Azula looked beautiful and perfect. "There. Now run along and join your brother and father in the hall. The painter will be here soon."

Azula turned then, craning her neck upwards. "Who will brush your hair for one hundred strokes?" If Mom asked her to do it, she would. She wanted to hold that fine comb in her hands. Wanted to stand on the chair while her mother sat at her feet. Wanted to feel the push and pull of each stroke. Wanted to do something that they both understood.

"I will do it myself," Ursa said, "as I have done for a long time now. Run along."

Azula obeyed, but her feet were heavy as she fled down the halls so that her mother would be sure to hear her leave. But she turned around, steps shadow-soft as she crept back towards her room, peering round the entry way very carefully so that her mother would not notice her presence.

Her mother's hair was down, her sleeves falling to the crook of her elbows as she combed her hair. Red scars in the shape of her father's hands printed her arms.

Stroke after stroke she brushed. The flames from the torches lining the halls glinted against the the comb while the jade insets peered between her fingers like ever seeing eyes.

Azula slunk away then, fingers clenching and unclenching in her palms.

Zuko was already there, Father too—standing with his back towards them.

She hoped he'd say she looked nice. She nudged Zuko then, and looked at Father. Zuko pushed her back and mouthed for her to stop.

"Stop fighting," their father said without looking at them.

They stopped. Then Ursa was there, trailed by the royal painter, clutching his inks and his parchments. "Ah," he said. "Ah, a lovely family. Why don't the parents sit on their very fine chairs—and the children will sit at their feet."

Mother and Father obeyed and sat on their fine chairs with their fine cushions stuffed with swan feathers.

"And the children—now the children," the painter said, his words more breath than voice.

Azula shoved Zuko towards their father's feet while she sat at her mother's.

"Oh yes, perfect—the symmetry is beautiful. Mother and daughter both equally lovely, and father and son both stoic and strong."

Azula rolled her eyes. As if she couldn't beat her big brother in a fight, as if she weren't the stronger firebender. She glanced over to Zuko, and saw how their father's hand rested heavily on his shoulder.

She looked back towards her mother. Her hands were folded in her sleeves, eyes focused on the painter with a bored expression.

"Child, child," the painter said. "Stop fidgeting and stare straight at me." Azula shifted so that her gaze followed her mother's. "Yes, yes that's right, just like that. There."

They held still for a very long time.

Their father never lifted his hand from Zuko's shoulder.

Azula would not have known her mother was behind her save for the measured beats of her breaths.

Azula straightened her shoulders, kept her eyes forward, without once leaning back. She was the perfect child, and the painter never had to reprimand her for fidgeting again.

It took a long time to paint, and when they were finished, there was just barely time to prepare themselves for the play. It was a good portrait, Azula thought, peering over the man's withered old shoulders on her tip-toes. She stared at their father's hand on Zuko's shoulder, and knew then that it wasn't too late, that her father still saw something in him, no matter what Zuko thought.

She knit her brows together, determined that their time on Ember Island would not go to waste, not on her watch. Zuko would prove himself a son that his father could be proud of, Azula would solidify her reputation as a firebending prodigy that anybody in their right minds would be afraid to cross, and Mom—she imagined the phantom weight of her mother's hand on her shoulder and in her hair.

Ty Lee could probably show her a thing or to, if Mom dared to ask. Maybe Azula should ask instead, and then show Mom how to do it.

It would be good mother-daughter bonding time, wouldn't it? This is how you block someone's chi, she would say, and then she would look through curtains, and see what would happen the next time their father held her hand like that when they were drinking tea. Her mother would be proud of her for something like that.

A voice called, pulling her back from her thoughts. She smoothed her hair with her palms, gently tugging them, the sensation narrowing and centering her focus. "Hurry up, Azula," Ursa called. "We're going to be late for the play."

Azula whirled from the painting, fire jetting from her feet to hasten her steps. As she neared them, she could see her brother and mother smiling together beside an empty palanquin, but her father sat alone inside his own palanquin, and his mouth was turned down, and he was frowning.

When she neared them, feet still smoking, she looked up at her father, and it seemed as if his face softened for just a moment. His voice was even gentle as he said, "Well done, Azula. It takes years for someone to become proficient, and yet here you are."

Her skin flushed, and she fire-jetted a circle around him once more, but she miscalculated the tightness of the curve and tipped over, falling to her knees. Pain seared her kneecaps, and her flush of pride morphed to a red blush of embarrassment as she hurried to her feet, brushing off the dirt from her clothes as her father laughed. "And I suppose we still have a few more years yet, don't we, Azula?"

Her blush spread beneath her collar. He only ever laughed when she made a mistake, when she reminded him she was still technically a child—though she was so much more than a little girl, so much more than Ozai's second child—and she stamped her foot. "I'll do it perfect before we leave. You won't even see me coming until it's too late."

Ozai mussed her hair with his hand, the hair that Ursa had so carefully combed. He never would have if she hadn't fallen, if she hadn't miscalculated, if she hadn't embarrassed herself in front of everyone who mattered. She looked back at the scorch marks that marred the grass. They still smoked. At least they showed she wasn't a complete fool.

"And what about Zuko?" Ozai said. "Can you do just as well?"

There was a glint in his eye. The same glint when he asked Azula where the last rice cake had gone when he knew perfectly well she had already eaten it. She looked from her father to Zuko, who had already bowed his head with shame.

"No, Father," he whispered.

"Have you even tried?"

Ursa interjected, her voice hard and honed as fine as one of Mai's knives. "Ozai—"

"How will he grow into a son I can be proud of when you're always coddling him, Ursa? How will he want to reach out and stoke that fire within him, and use it, if you never let him?"

Ursa moved behind Zuko, putting both her hands on his shoulders, sheltering him with her embrace, protecting him from the scorn in their father's voice. She opened her mouth, and words came out. Her voice so gentle and calming.

As Azula watched, it became hard to breathe in the heat.

"I'll teach him," Azula said in the brief pause between when Ursa had finished speaking and when Father opened his mouth to reply. Azula moved in close to Zuko, and put her hand in his, tugging him so he stood from his mother, and closer to her. He winced at how tightly she held him, which only made her squeeze harder. "We've already arranged it, haven't we, Zuko?"

"You did?" Ursa's voice came out sharp, shearing the thin silence between her ears, and Azula flinched. "Why?"

Azula looked up at Ursa, putting on her most serene smile. "Because I'm the most perfect sister anybody could ask for."

"We will discuss this later as we have delayed long enough," Father said. "We are going to be late to the play."

Azula stepped into the second palanquin, dragging Zuko after her. Mother went to sit beside Ozai, her head shaking in disapproval as always.

There was no sound but the labored breathing of the men who marched them into the square, no disruption but the few times their burdens slipped on their sweating shoulders. Sometimes Father stuck his head through the curtains and urged them to go faster, faster, double-time, voice whip-sharp and just as cruel.

Their pace outnumbered the beating of Azula's heart.

They arrived at the playhouse with enough time to find their seats, the ticket taker groveling as he informed them that no tickets need be sold to members of the royal family, the best seats always reserved for them should they deign to grace them with their presence, and Azula observed their bowed heads, their eyes sliding away from them as her father towered over them, how they cringed away from him.

It felt satisfying.

One day, she would be like that. No one would dare touch her without permission. They wouldn't dare tell her what to do and how to do it. She couldn't wait to grow up.

She took her seat, standing on it so she could see over the heads of the patrons. It was the same play they went to see every year, Love Amongst the Dragons. She never could understand why Mom liked it so much.

The actors couldn't act. Azula was certain that she could waltz onto the stage and take the dragon emperor's place, wearing his mask with more assurance and certainty than the actor who played him because she knew fire better than he did. These people weren't even benders.

She twisted her fingers through her sleeve as the spirit with the blue mask cursed the dragon emperor to mortal form, and her nails dragged down her arm.

Maybe her uncle hadn't killed the last dragon, she thought. Maybe the last dragon was still hiding, either by choice or by fate. Maybe one day she would find it, and prove herself once and for all.

She shivered, and smoke filtered from her nostrils as she breathed deep.

Zuko noticed it, and he leaned up to whisper in her ear, "What are you doing? You're going to get us into trouble."

"Relax, brother," she said. "Everything is under control."

The play continued, and Azula shook her head as she always did, because the play was wrong though. Love couldn't solve anything, it couldn't fix anything. If she had been the dragon emperor she would have broken the curse by remembering her fire, and burning down the world and whoever had hurt her until she stood triumphant in its charred ashes.

She laughed and laughed while the crowd cheered and clapped as the actors bowed after the play was finished. Her mother admired, as she always did, the beauty of the love story. She seemed wistful, almost, as she spoke of it.

But Azula could barely listen as she summoned a flame and searched for its blue heart.

* * *

 _Notes: Plot for "Love Amongst the Dragons" taken from the ATLA wiki entry: [click here]_


	20. The Storm

They sailed south so they could follow the chain of Fire Nation islands east towards Ba Sing Se. They needed to resupply for their journey—water in skins that wouldn't crack and split, dried meats and fruit that hurt Azula's teeth, and other foods that would keep them nourished and healthy—in theory. Azula looked down at the goods before her, fingers playing with the coin that Suki had entrusted to her (just as if she were a child), and remembered a time when they could have taken whatever they needed for free.

"I'll give you a silver piece for four of your mangoes," Azula said to one of the merchants that had set up their booths by the dock. "They're probably infested with maggots or so ripe they're bruising with rot, so I wouldn't wait around looking for another offer. It'll only be lower than mine."

The merchant folded her arms, dared to look Azula in the eye, and said, "No. Five silver pieces."

Azula slammed her palms on the counter and loomed towards the merchant. "I don't think you heard me correctly, so let me repeat myself very patiently. I said one silver piece because your goods are not worth five. And besides, I think that's a very fair price, considering who I am. Surely you recognize me, don't you?"

The merchant huffed her chest a little more, shifting into something that vaguely resembled an offensive stance, but was probably more stubborn than anything else. "I've seen you. Not looking at other stalls. Only looking at mine. You want them very badly or else you would have left already."

Azula tucked the two silver pieces that Suki had trusted to her care into the leather pouch strapped to her waist. "Of course, when you put it like that, perhaps the pleasure of watching me walk away will feed your hungry children."

"I'll sell the last of these old mangoes before the sun sets," the merchant said as Azula turned around. "I don't count it a great loss to lose business from one such as you."

Azula flushed with heat simmering just below her skin, but it still wouldn't spark into flame. It wasn't real firebending, just a pale echo of something that had once been great. She remembered when she had first made their way to Ba Sing Se with Mai and Ty Lee. They had been treated like they deserved to be treated. They hadn't scrounged for food. They didn't worry about packing salted meats that looked like they belonged in the Water Tribe instead of the Fire Nation. They hadn't needed to worry about conserving their money or starving to death or picking up a disease.

Even Zuko hadn't traveled so hard. Zuko had traveled like a prince, a banished prince, but a prince nonetheless.

Until she had run him to ground, and he could find no refuge in his royal title. Then he had walked on his feet, had searched for food. He had been so skinny when she'd found him. His hair shaggy, unkempt, naked without its top-knot.

She smiled at that.

Her face fell again as her fingers found the crooked fringe of hair she had cut with her own hand before her coronation. She had ruined it, just like she had ruined everything else.

She tried to tuck the strands behind her ear but her hair still wasn't long enough. She closed her eyes, and inhaled a breath that filled her lungs, before exhaling it slowly.

The warm scent of fire lilies tripped lightly across her tongue. She remembered that her mother had favored them, had always kept one or two in her room. Once, when they were younger, she had slipped them in her hair, just there over her ear.

She turned away, looking now towards the ocean, the sea-salt tang of it heavy in her nose and on her tongue, washing away the scent of the fire lilies. She passed a building that had bars in its windows, flinching when an old hand, wrinkled and veined with blue, clutched after her. "Water," a voice croaked. "Water for a poor old woman held prisoner here."

Azula stilled, her head swiveling until she focused again on the hand that flapped after the approaching and receding steps of people who minded their own business.

They ignored her, save for a tightening of their lips, a downcast turn of their eyes, a rush in their footsteps.

Azula looked for the guards that should have been stationed there, but she could see no one. She rolled her eyes. Why would she be surprised that some peasant village was incapable of standard protocols when it came to the confinement of prisoners?

She drew closer to the building, and the old woman must have heard her because her arm stiffened, her fingers stretching outwards as she said, "Is someone there? Can you help me? I'm just a poor old woman who is unjustly imprisoned."

"Who are you?" Azula called out, but stopping just shy of the crone's finger. The nails were split and cracked, scabbed over as if she had scrabbled at the walls, and maybe she had. Azula certainly understood that feeling. "Where are your jailers?"

"I'm no one but a poor old woman looking for just a little bit of kindness," she said. "Water, please."

"Kindness?" Azula scowled. "You've come to the wrong person for kindness." She started to swerve away, her eyes still lingering on the mangoes, as she made her way to the docks where Suki was still bartering for lengths of rope and sail for their weather beaten little boat.

Azula interrupted them. "Who is that old woman in the jail cells wailing for water? It's aggravating and embarrassing."

The man held his hand to Azula, and then turned back toward Suki, who darted a fierce glare at Azula before continuing their bartering. Azula waited impatiently, her arms folded over her chest, toes tapping inside her boot so that no one would see. She smoothed the hair framing her face with her hands. It was stiff with salt, and she feared it would never feel nice again.

Once Suki and the trader bowed to each other after arriving at a bargain, the trader turned towards Azula once more. "The old woman used to be an innkeeper in one of the neighboring villages. She was a woman from the Southern Water Tribe."

"She's a long way from home, isn't she?" Suki asked.

The trader coughed and shuffled his feet. "She was a waterbender taken in one of the raids a long time ago. She escaped, and came here."

Suki's face hardened in that righteous outrage that Azula had come to recognize.

"It wasn't much of an escape then, was it," Azula said so that Suki wouldn't intervene. "I could have done better in my sleep."

Suki stepped on her foot, and Azula shoved her back a few steps. By this time, Ty Lee and Mai had returned, their hands full of bags and packs. They sat them on the ground, and listened.

"She actually lived in the village for many years," the trader said. "We were unaware that she was of the Southern Water Tribe. We thought she was one of us. I remember she would give me sweets when I was little. My father used to trade ash bananas with the village there, and I would always insist on bringing her some because she loved so much." His face blanched but he continued on. "But she was a powerful waterbender—and she began to take people under the light of the full moon, locking villagers up under the mountain-or so I heard."

Azula's eyes narrowed. "She's a waterbender—not an earthbender. She's hardly what I would describe as strong. How could she drag a sack of turnips much less fully grown men?"

"With bloodbending, a technique so advanced only a master can do it, and only under the light of a full moon."

"If she's such a master," Azula said, "shouldn't you keep her hands bound so she can't bend? Especially so close as we are to the ocean?"

The trader bowed his head, feet shuffling nervously. "It's a risk that we decided to take when Hama's village asked us to take her since they did not feel comfortable keeping her in their own cells. We do not desire to be cruel, like the prison she originally escaped from treated her—" Azula rolled her eyes – "but we also desire to protect ourselves."

"How did the other village even catch her," Suki said, "if she's as dangerous as you say?"

"I was told it was another waterbender dressed in Fire Nation garb," the man said. "Apparently, Hama had hoped to recruit her as an apprentice. She—didn't see things the same way. She bloodbended the old woman, which allowed them to take her into custody."

Azula's eyes sparked and she said, "Was she young with long dark hair? Did she travel in the company of a blind girl, her brother, and a younger boy with an arrow on his head?"

The trader looked at her like she was some kind of mind reader. "I don't know about the boy with the arrow-but according to the story they tell, everyone else is right on. It was the blind earthbender who rescued them from the mountains. How did you know?"

"It was a lucky guess," Azula said, her voice sour. So Katara had been the one to lock Hama away—which, in and of itself was surprising. Azula would never have anticipated that Katara would let a fellow woman from the Water Tribe rot in a Fire Nation jail. Something like a tiny bit of grudging respect grew reluctantly in her.

"Katara did this?" Suki said, her voice small.

Azula scoffed. "You sound disappointed."

"Wait," the man said, "you know the company who saved them?"

"We know them alright," Azula replied. "They're great friends of ours."

The trader bowed again. "Please let them know the depth of our gratitude when you see them. But if you please excuse me, ladies, I have other business to attend to."

Suki glowered at him as he left. "I can't believe this," she said. "I can't believe Katara and Aang let them treat her like that."

Azula stared at the jail, and began to pace in a small, tight circle with her hands behind her back. She had the beginning of a plan in her head—she just needed to make it believable to the others. Ironically, Suki would be the easiest person to convince. Mai of course would be the hardest. She would be the one who would see through it.

Mai re-shouldered her bag, sighing gloomily. "I fail to see why we're bothered. The Avatar took care of the problem and obviously didn't mind how it was handled. If he didn't care, why should we? Let's just go and be on our way."

Ty Lee nodded. She shook her long braid from her shoulder as she picked up her pack. Suki stood between them, biting her lip.

"But this isn't her home," Suki said. Her face was flushed, her hands jittered at her side. "You people took her from her home, and now she's rotting in a jail cell because of you."

"She's rotting because she kidnapped people by bloodbending them," Mai said, her voice dull.

"Besides, Mai and I didn't have anything to do with the raids on the Southern Water Tribe," Ty Lee said.

Suki rounded on them, her hands balled in tight fists. "And so it's not your problem, is that it? I know it's not fair that your parents made this decision and now you're saddled with it, but after we're done here, you get to go back to your palaces and I return to Kyoshi Island. Don't you think she wants to go home, too, and you're just going to turn your back on her because she's not your problem?" Suki stopped for breath, breathing in deep and letting it out slowly. "Do you realize that these people have been dragged into permanent exile because of you? Homeless because of you? Without their family, because of you?" Suki turned to Azula. "Your search is to bring your family back together, to undo the wrong your father did when he banished your mother. But he wronged more than just you. He wronged entire families, entire nations."

"What do you want us to do?" Mai said. "We're not supposed to be traveling as Fire Nation. We're nobodies out here."

"You're pretending to be nobodies," Suki said, voice strung tight. "There's a difference."

Azula listened as she watched the back and forth between them. Suki was doing all the work, and she held her tongue lest she ruin the moment.

Mai rolled her eyes. "Fine. Let's just rescue her instead of talking about it."

"Thank you," Suki said. "You two stay here. Me and Azula will take care of this."

"So do I not even get a say about what we do on my quest to restore my honor?" Azula called as she lingered behind Suki.

Suki did not turn back, and so did not see Azula's smile. "No, you don't. Besides this will help restore it-if you let it."

"I'm sure that I will learn a very important moral lesson instead of being terribly inconvenienced and delayed," Azula said. "The tides wait for no one, Suki! If this takes too long, we'll have to stay the night. The only reason I mention it is because you and the others miss home so dreadfully. It would be a shame to keep you separated from your loved ones longer than necessary."

"Shut up, and help me find the magistrate."

They found him in a building that occupied the very center of town. "I am very busy," he said, head bowed over parchments that appeared to contain graphs of profits, while other scrolls contained sketches of buildings, and what appeared to be the first drafts of several laws. "Come back tomorrow."

Azula pushed Suki back, and strode forward until she towered over the man sitting at his desk. "I think you can make time to speak to the Princess of the Fire Nation."

He dropped his quill as his head jerked up, skin blanching as he saw her, then turning red with embarrassment. "You're not the Princess of the Fire Nation. You're nothing but beggared travelers, probably attempting to swindle us somehow."

"Don't let looks deceive you," Azula said, her voice sharp. "After all, it was the appearance of me and my friends as Kyoshi Warriors that allowed us to take the city of Ba Sing Se. Don't make the same mistake that has felled greater men than you."

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Suki's mouth twist, and she allowed a small smile for herself. She might not have daggers like Mai to stab into someone's vulnerable side, but her words could corkscrew an old wound that would probably never heal.

"My apologies, Princess Azula," the man said, rising to his feet, and then groveling at the floor. "How can we assist you?"

Azula wondered if they knew that she had lost her bending—if they would still be willing to accommodate her if they knew what she had lost, that she was incomplete, that she was less than herself. She resolved that they would never know. "You have in your poorly guarded cells an old woman by the name of Hama. We're told she used to belong to the Southern Water Tribe. Me and my companions desire to take her with us to Ba Sing Se where we will arrange passage for her to the South Pole, should she be agreeable. It is true, is it not, that with the financial assistance of the Fire Nation that refugees are returning home with monetary compensation?"

He nodded. "Of course, you are correct and wise, Princess Azula. I am agreed as long as Hama is agreeable to it."

Azula rolled her eyes. Of course she would be agreeable to it. She was practically inhibited from bending—she'd do anything to get that power back. Azula knew that feeling well.

The magistrate appraised their company, and she knew that he saw only teenage girls. Bitterness needled through her. "But I do not believe you understand the gravity of the situation, Princess. This Hama is a very dangerous bender."

"And so am I." Azula's lip curled into a sneer. "I think I can handle one old woman who has to rely on a full moon to be remotely dangerous. There won't even be a full moon for several weeks." Silence descended between them. His eyes were on her, as if he did not quite believe her. Perhaps there had been rumors of her defeat at the hands of Katara, the same one who had brought Hama to her knees. Perhaps there had been rumors that she had lost her bending. Azula looked at the room, at the gold and ivory statuary, at the dry parchments still shiny with ink. "Would you like a demonstration of my abilities if my accomplishments at Ba Sing Se are not enough? Perhaps we'll start with your bills. Paper is so flammable-you really should be more careful."

Suki rolled her eyes and pushed Azula back. "We are already escorting one high level dangerous prisoner." She glared at Azula. "Another one will be of no difficulties for us—especially since we won't consider her a prisoner, just someone who could use a home that's not a jail cell."

"What if she does not agree to return with you to Ba Sing Se? She cannot roam free in our village, terrorizing us again."

"Then let her rot," Azula said impatiently. "We do not have time to debate this, as we intend to leave your village today and not tomorrow. We're doing you a favor if you weren't too stupid to see it."

"Yes, Princess. Please, follow me." He shuffled past her quickly.

They followed behind him, Suki falling in step beside Azula. "That was out of line," she said quietly, so that he wouldn't hear.

"Which part?" Azula asked. "As far I can, see I got results, and if I had had my way, we would have already cast off."

"You lied about everything," Suki said between her teeth. "You threatened him."

Azula shrugged. "Like I haven't done that before. It's who I am."

"We're not supposed to be bullying people," Suki said. "You're on a quest to restore your honor—this what I witnessed here? Was disgraceful." She stopped Azula by putting her hands on her shoulders. "You should be ashamed."

Azula slid away, sidestepping her neatly. "Let's continue this conversation later when we're not in the middle of your charity mission."

They arrived very quickly at Hama's jail. "We don't keep her under guard. If we did, she could bloodbend them into letting her go. The water we give her to drink has a sedative in it so that we are safe," the magistrate explained.

"You drug her?" Azula said. "You drug her so that she can't bend?" She shared a glance with Suki who also appeared unhappy at this revelation. Apparently they could agree about something.

"It is a chance we cannot take—she is too dangerous."

"I'm sure we can handle it," Azula snapped.

He shook his head, then stepped hesitantly toward the barred window of the cell. "Hama—you have visitors with a proposition."

"Water," Hama croaked, "water for a poor old woman."

"Hush!" He bent down and picked up a stone that he threw towards the jail. It clanged against the bars, and Azula could barely disguise her flinch.

Suki stepped forward angrily but Azula held her back.

Hama spoke again, indignant and angry. "And why might I care to listen to anything you have to say? You destroyed my family, my life! You have nothing that I want to hear."

"We can't tell her that we're Fire Nation," Azula said in a whisper to Suki.

"We'll tell her we're with the Earth Kingdom," Suki whispered back. "Which is true considering you are with me."

Azula strode past the magistrate, and called out, "I have a proposition that might be of interest to you, Hama of the Water Tribe."

The old hand stuck out of its bars again, pointing at her with accusation. "That voice," she said. "I know that voice. You were the one that said you were the wrong person to ask for a bit of kindness. You denied me water!"

"Only to offer you something so much better," Azula said, her lips curving around her teeth. With Hama on her side, a competent bender in her debt? Well, anything could be possible.

Hama refused to ask what Azula meant by that, so Azula shrugged and went on. "We come in friendship from the Earth Kingdom. If you don't know yet, Ba Sing Se is currently taking in refugees and helping those who wish to return home. That is where we are heading now, and we would gladly take you along with us. Unless you'd rather rot away in that cell of yours with no hope of seeing home again. It's your choice."

"Home?" Hama's voice quavered. "Even so far away as the Southern Water Tribe?"

"Yes," Azula said, "even as far away as that."

"Then I accept," Hama said. "When do we leave?"

Azula looked at the magistrate beside her. "Immediately."

He shook his head, but unclasped the keys from his belt so he could remove a particular one from the ring. It was a simple, heavy key. "Leave it be in its lock when you're done," he said. "I refuse to come near that old sea witch again."

"Oh, please," Azula said, rolling her eyes. "What would the Firelord say if he knew such a coward was employed in the government of this town?" She ground her boot into the ground when she realized she was thinking of her father. Zuko probably wouldn't care about this man's cowardice.

The magistrate swung away from her when he heard her speak, muttering something that Azula could not quite understand.

"You should be thanking us!" Azula called back. "We're doing you a favor. We didn't have to take her off your hands, you know!"

But he did not look back, and Suki asked, "How old are you again?"

Azula ignored Suki as she went to unlock Hama's cell. It was dim, and it smelled rank. As Azula resisted covering her mouth and nose with her hand, she was grateful that Mai had not come along with them. For someone as strong as Mai, she was overcome easily by things that were too much: by colors that were too bright, sounds that were too loud, smells that were too strong. Even the smell of something good was enough to send her running. She wouldn't have been able to stay here for more than a few seconds.

Hama was crouched in the center of her cell, old robes stained with filth. Her white hair fell haggardly around her face, and she looked up at them with red-rimmed, bloodshot eyes. She crawled forward on her hands and knees. Her nails were crusted with dirt. "Wait, wait, wait," Hama muttered as she still made her slow way towards her pallet with a too thin mattress. She lifted it up, and picked up a comb that looked as if it were made of whale bone.

"What's that?" Azula said, her voice sharp.

Hama clutched it to her chest. "It's mine—nobody touches it but me. It's the one thing that's reminded me of home in all these years."

Azula glared at the comb. "Why? Because it was your mother's? Your family's? It's nothing but bones—like you."

Suki opened her mouth to chastise her—shout her name in scandalized tones—but Hama just laughed as she brushed past her. "You are just a child, fool. What do you understand of home when you've not been in exile for as long as I?"

Azula muttered, "More than you might think," before she started following her to the ship.

As they made their way to the docks, she passed the merchant whose mangoes had seemed so appealing. The merchant whistled at her, gesturing at her empty wares, and waved her goodbye with a smile that Azula would have burned off her face if she could. Instead, she settled for making a rude gesture with her fingers.

Mai and Ty Lee had already prepared the ship to leave, and so when they hurried on deck, they soon found themselves out to sea. Azula listened to the water pushing and pulling the ship. She rubbed her palms over her arms, her fingernails scraping at the more sensitive skin beneath her ragged sleeves. The pressure pulled her back from remembering the last time she had been surrounded by water, unable to move, unable to breathe, completely and utterly helpless.

Hama rested below because she was an old woman, and they had assured her that they did not need her help sailing the ship especially since a storm was coming, and it would be safer for her below deck. The wind that billowed their sails smelled of water and salt. It whipped Azula's hair in her face, stinging her eyes. She ran her fingers through it, catching herself in the snarls. She pulled harder, pain lancing through her scalp as she clawed at the knots.

Ty Lee's hand fell upon her wrist. "What are you doing, Azula? You're going to ruin your beautiful hair."

"You shouldn't call me that with company around," Azula said as she twitched away. "Besides, I'm not ruining anything." This sorry excuse for a ship was ruining it. The salt and the wind was ruining it. The storm was going to ruin it.

Ty Lee slipped behind her, knuckles ghosting over the nape of her neck. Azula closed her eyes as Ty Lee began to run her fingers through her hair. "It's not perfect, but I think it's better." Her fingers pressed firmly against her scalp, snaking a path down her head, down her neck, down her back. One smooth line from top to center, grounding her here, in this moment, her whole body anchored in that single movement. Azula measured her breathing, steadied it, in time to Ty Lee's strokes.

"Someone please stab my eyes out," Mai said behind them.

Ty Lee rounded on her, fingers gone from Azula's hair. "Why do you have to be like that about everything?"

Mai rolled her eyes, and went back to dividing the dried meats and fruits they had picked up at the market. Azula's mouth watered for the mangoes she had failed to buy with the coin Suki had entrusted to her. It was still in her pocket. Suki hadn't asked for it back yet.

They were about to bring food to Hama, but she met them on the deck. Her white hair caught the wind, and she pulled her blanket around her more tightly.

"Maybe you should go down below," Suki said, touching her arm. "It'll be warmer there—gentler, too." She glanced up at the sky and at the coming storm.

"I'm not afraid of the weather or the wind or the water," Hama said. "These things are my home. I've never felt more alive than I have on the ocean."

That was unfortunate. Azula had planned on volunteering to bring Hama her dinner once Mai had finished preparing it. She would have told Hama that Suki and Mai and Ty Lee were Fire Nation, and that she desperately needed Hama's help to escape from them. If they had disappeared at sea, what could Zuko or the Avatar prove other than what they already knew: that Hama was dangerous and deadly and that they had been misguided in their desire to help her.

But ultimately, what could Azula have done to save them, without her bending?

It was a good plan. Not a perfect plan, because Hama was a wild card, but Azula was sure she could convince Hama to use her bending to rid of her babysitters.

But Hama settled beside them, her hand reaching for the food, her old, paper-thin skin stretched tight over her bones. "I believe that I'm at a disadvantage in this party," Hama said. "You know me, but I don't know you."

The girls looked at each other, and Suki stepped in, neatly. "Well, I'm Suki of the Kyoshi Warriors. This is Ty Lee, who joined us some time ago." Ty Lee bowed, her eyes and mouth smiling so big Azula wondered how it was possible for someone to be so happy. Her eyes slid to Mai, who, judging by her frown and the way she picked at her food, was probably thinking the same thing. Mai was like Zuko, who was like Azula. They were never happy, and Azula scowled hard enough she felt her face twist. It was unthinkable that she shared something with them, that they actually had something in common with each other.

Suki was still introducing them. "And this is Mai, who is a friend of ours."

"Not a Kyoshi Warrior then," Hama said.

"I'm never wearing that uniform again," Mai said. "But I can still fight as well as the best of them."

"She's amazing," Ty Lee said, her chin propped on her fists.

"And this one?" Hama pointed at Azula.

Azula looked to Suki, waiting to see how cleverly she could lie. They hadn't had time to come up with a name for Azula. It was not a common name, people would know who she was as she heard, and so she waited to see what name Suki would come up for her.

Suki hesitated only a split moment before she managed to say, "Ursa. She's Ursa."

Azula had to hide her expression as she bent her head to chew on some dried meat, missing the tender fish she could have been having right now if she hadn't had to go on this ridiculous quest. And besides, a Fire Nation name? Her chances at convincing Hama that she wasn't Fire Nation were growing quite slim.

But Hama set her bowl down, her hands loose in her lap. "Now why would you lie to an old woman like that, Suki? You seemed like such a nice girl."

Suki's cheeks flushed. Mai had already shifted so that her knives were in easy reach. Ty Lee's smile had instantly vanished.

"What do you mean?" Suki said, smiling a sickly sort of smile.

"I heard one of you call this one Azula. I might be old but I can still hear. And I know that there is only one Azula in the entire Fire Nation that could have released me from that cage. Azula, daughter of Ozai and Ursa, Princess of the Fire Nation, conqueror of Ba Sing Se, the one who almost defeated the Avatar—I know you. We share a defeat at the hands of the same master, you and I-or so the rumors say." Hama raised her head, white hair framing her face, her eyes clear. "I would have preferred to do this with the strength of the full moon, but I suppose this will just have to do."

Ty Lee flew to her feet, her knuckles crooked, and she lunged for those same spots where she had struck Azula, but a wave from the ocean pulled her from the deck. Another swept Mai and Suki off the other side, leaving Azula, who had already climbed to her feet, to face Hama alone.

The old woman hadn't even bothered to rise. Wind whipped her white hair, and her hands were positioned in front of her chest, guiding streams of water from the ocean so that they shaped tentacles curving protectively around her.

Azula had seen Katara use a similar form in the crystal catacombs beneath Ba Sing Se. Azula sneered anyway, as water began to bend in circles around her. "Are you trying to frighten me with your octopus thing or by taking away my friends? You can't scare me. They were my jailers so you've actually done me a favor. I suppose I should thank you for that." She clapped her hands slowly as she bowed to Hama. "Well done." A whip of water lashed towards her face, and she dodged it neatly, dropping into a defensive position, though what she could do against Hama when she was literally summoning the power of the ocean against her she did not know.

"I don't care about your Fire Nation friends," Hama said, "and I wouldn't keep them alive even if it would make you more miserable because I'm going to do what someone should have done to you a long time ago."

Azula adopted a pose of feigned disinterest as she dripped on the deck. "You're threatening to kill me? I'm flattered, really, but you're certainly not the first." She sighed as she slipped into an offensive form, her fingers poised in familiar positions even though she knew it was a futile hope-but she had to try to firebend. "Even my brother has threatened to kill me and he's always failed. You will as well."

Walls of water slammed into her, throwing her against the wood of the ship. Her skull hit the planks with a sharp smack, disorientating her, blurring her vision. She rubbed her palms over her eyes, hissing as the salt stung them. She scrambled to her feet and tried to find some sort of shelter, as she pressed herself behind the mast of the ship.

Hama sent waves of water after her that slanted and curved around the mast. Azula felt that if Hama really wanted to, she could have just pulled her overboard like she had done to the others. But no, Hama was playing with her. She could respect that.

Azula closed her eyes as her wet, cold fingers clung to the slippery mast as another wave rolled her way. She could hear Mai's voice in her ears, that thin needle of accusation: you miscalculated.

Azula screamed, then, as she slammed her head against the mast, to banish that voice, to banish those words.

"You're scared, Fire Nation Princess!" Hama's voice sounded triumphant. She burst out laughing as she sent another wave of water to knock Azula off her feet.

As Azula coughed up sea water, she saw that Hama was still at the bow of the ship while she was at the stern. And there was the whipping sail, and a length of rope flailing in the storm, its knots coming undone, loosening.

Pain twisted in her kidneys, and she fell again to the ship, trying to breathe through it.

"I never dreamed to have brought the Fire Nation so low," Hama said. She was standing now, still far from Azula, but walking slowly towards her. "I'll rip the water from your flesh as I once stripped it from the fire lilies. It's not as good as bloodbending-but it's enough."

Her hands tightened, and Azula bit down on the cry of pain that crowded her throat as her hands pressed against the hurt. "Is this how you show your gratitude?" Azula gasped, as she climbed gingerly to her feet, forcing her hands to reach for the poorly tied rigging. The sail was flapping violently in the wind, and the water was churning beneath their ship. The storm with Hama's bending was making things very difficult for her.

"You stole me from my friends and family. You ruined our way of life, our culture! Why should I thank you for bringing me to Ba Sing Se, which is even farther from my old village? I don't think so!"

She spat at Azula, and it landed on her cheek. Azula ignored it as her cold fingers struggled with the remaining knot, and she wished she still had Mai's knife instead of leaving it behind to rust.

But they would have taken the knife from her, and besides, Mai and Ty Lee and Suki were probably dead anyway, drowned in the ocean. Azula knew they were good swimmers, but if they lost sight of the boat, if they were caught in one of the dangerous currents, there was a whole ocean between this spot of nowhere and Ba Sing Se.

Hama laughed softly. "The entire world feared you. They feared the shadow of your sail, the dirty snow your dirty engines caused to fall. They feared the long cast of your body as you stared down upon them. They feared the press of your boot against their earths. And look at you now—a shivering, frail little girl who hasn't even sent a candle flame my way. The rumors are true! You can't bend. Don't bother to deny it. The Avatar took it from you as he took it from your father, and you are helpless, you are useless, you are powerless. But that never stopped the Fire Nation armies with their multitudes of groomed firebenders as they preyed upon the south, upon mothers and children who had already lost so much and who couldn't fight back! Give up now, Princess. There's nowhere to go."

She raised her hands, and Azula jerked at the sudden lightness in her limbs, and she fell face first into the mast. Salt from the ocean, from the blood flowing from her split lip, mingled on her tongue, and she was suddenly unbearably thirsty, craving water or wine or the melon juice they used to drink during the hottest months on Ember Island.

"Prepare yourself!" Hama cried.

The rope finally came loose in her hands, and she pulled it from the rigging, Azula holding it fast as she looped it hurriedly over her shoulder. "Just one problem with your grand plan for revenge," Azula said. "I don't accept it." Then she released the sail. It flapped undone towards Hama, covering her head, blinding her momentarily. Azula ran across the deck and leaped overboard. Her arms reached over her head, hands shaping an arrow as she pressed her legs together, toes pointed just as she had been taught as a child. Moments before breaking the surface, she breathed deeply, and squeezed her eyes closed.

She barely made a splash as she plunged through the water, diving deep into the blue-blackness. A chill seeped through Azula's clothes, her skin, her bones. It prickled against her lungs that were already struggling not to breathe as water, heavy and dark, closed over her head. Azula shucked off her boots, and the heavier cloak that had kept her warm against the wind.

Azula tried to kick her way to the surface as her lungs burned. Her limbs were stiff and, as she tried to move through the churning water, she wondered, wildly, if Hama would make it freeze around her like Katara had, completely immobilizing her, and the panic fueled her muscles as she struggled, as the surface grew farther and farther away, and she wondered if she was actually going deeper, if she was going the wrong way, if she had gotten all turned around, and her heart hammered as her mouth opened to scream, and then she was crashing through the surface, her hair sopping into her eyes.

But the ocean pulled her down again, and Azula struggled to break free and breathe, attempting to tread water as the wind made the waves unbearable and huge.

She coughed as water drained down her throat, and she tried to see the ship as she was tossed side to side. There was a smudge on the horizon that could have been the ship, but it was nowhere near by, and she wondered if the water had pulled her away or if Hama had just decided to leave them to drown in the storm. Maybe the storm was actually doing more to protect them than they could have done themselves.

Once satisfied that the ship was not in sight, Azula struggled to take a breath and shouted for Mai and Ty Lee. "Come on, beach bums!" She bobbed against the surface as she struggled to stay afloat.

She felt so weak, so tired as she looked for the glint of Mai's dagger or the length of Ty Lee's braid. Her breath grew shallower. It had been different when she had sent them away because she could change her mind, unlikely as that would be. But this? They'd be gone forever, gone for good, gone without her making it so.

Hama didn't have the right. The ocean didn't have the right. The storm didn't have the right.

Taking a deep breath, she dove again, forcing her eyes to open underneath the water even though the salt stung. She looked for the ribbon of pink that Ty Lee still wore, for Mai's long face, but there was nothing but the sea and the flickering of lightning in the sky.

She stayed down there until she needed more air, until the weight of the water became too much, and she could only see Katara floating before her eyes, breathing in the water like she belong there, like it was her home even as she humiliated Azula in her own house.

Azula broke through the surface, coughing and spluttering as she thrashed to keep afloat. Then a cold something curled around her ankle and tugged, and water closed over her head before she had had a chance to breathe. She kicked out, savagely, but she couldn't break loose and, when she opened her eyes, she was looking into Ty Lee's desperate face as her cold hands clawed up Azula's body. Her face was pale from the cold, her lips turning blue from lack of air.

Azula gripped her by her underarms and thrust her upwards, towards the surface, where she coughed up sea water and breathed in jagged lungfuls of air, as her hands scrabbled at Azula's shoulders, her weight pushing Azula down in the dark places where there was no air, no way to move, just a wet grave, and then it was Azula who clutched at Ty Lee's wet, slippery skin as she tried to pull herself up.

A hand grabbed her by the neck and heaved her onto a piece of driftwood—a remnant of an old Earth Kingdom wreck from the looks of it. Suki was clinging to its edge, with Ty Lee beside her, teeth chattering as she coughed up water. "Mai?" Azula asked, her voice scraped raw from her swollen throat.

Suki shook her head, and Ty Lee whimpered as she clutched their small piece of driftwood.

"She's here," Azula insisted. "She went overboard with you. Or were you too stupid to stick together?"

"We got separated!" Suki said. "I've looked all over and I can't find her."

Azula glared at her, and then uncoiled the rope she had wrapped around her arm, securing it to the driftwood. She looped a length around Suki's wrist, and then Ty Lee's. "You're just not looking hard enough. But I understand. Sometimes you just have to do something yourself." She secured the very end of the rope to her own wrist so that there was plenty of give for her to dive into the water and look around. "I'm going to look for Mai while you cling to that piece of wood like bilge rats."

"Azula, don't!" Suki said, but it was too late because Azula was already kicking even further than she had before, when she had been too afraid she wouldn't be able to find her way back to the surface. But with the rope, she had nothing to fear.

She didn't even have to worry about someone cutting her loose because none of them were like Mai, who kept her daggers hidden like secrets in her robes.

She kicked until she felt the tug of the rope, and then she climbed it back up for air, before diving again to the noise of Suki's protests and Ty Lee's weaker ones.

Once or twice, she felt a jerk from the rope tied around her wrist, and she jerked it right back until they stopped trying to tell her what to do, that she couldn't do this, because Hama had been right about one thing: she was still a princess of the Fire Nation, and they weren't anybody to give her orders.

Then one time when she came up for air, she let herself roll onto her back as the waves pushed her. It let her rest because her limbs were so tired they trembled uncontrollably. She wondered where else there was to go, if someone could even survive so long in the storm. She wondered if maybe it would be better to leave Mai behind because even if Azula did save her, it wasn't as if Mai would be grateful.

Her brother would understand that sometimes people were lost at sea.

Leaders had to make these live or die decisions all the time. They had to make the right move that would ensure the greatest chance of success.

And besides, Mai had betrayed her. Mai had chosen Zuko over her. Mai loved Zuko, and she didn't feel anything towards Azula.

Why was she going through all this trouble for someone so untrustworthy?

Because Azula decided when something ended-not some random entity like the ocean.

She turned her head to look at Suki and Ty Lee, still gripping the bit of driftwood, still trying to stay afloat.

More than they needed to find Mai, they needed to find land. They needed to find water too, water they could actually drink.

Thirst burned her throat, swelled her tongue. She tried to say, "One more time," but her voice had been washed away along with the rest of her.

She took a deep breath, and slid beneath the surface for the last time.

Before, before that day, she could have burned this ocean away—it would have boiled until it was nothing but a flat stretch of salt.

She kicked at it, furious, and her fist went slowly through the thickness of the water because it wasn't a physical being, it didn't have a weak point to exploit, and then she saw the water-logged figure, just there, just floating in the darkness. Azula kicked out, arms plowing through the water until she felt the tug of the rope telling her that she had used up her lengths, so she kicked harder and harder, dragging the weight of the wood and the two girls clutching its surface, as her hands clawed towards Mai's slowly sinking body.

Azula gripped Mai's robes, but her arms were too tired, her body too heavy, carrying too much ocean in her, so Azula shed Mai's heavy, outer clothes, shucking them from her as her lungs screamed for air. Looping her arm under Mai's so that she gripped her torso, Azula started swimming for the surface. Mai's body was held close to her, her head tipped against her shoulder as they struggled back to the piece of wood.

Suki dragged and hauled her in when she saw Azula's burden, and they lugged Mai onto the piece of driftwood after Ty Lee rolled back into the water. The wood wouldn't support them all, and it barely supported Mai, already threatening to sink under her weight.

Sea water dribbled from the corners of Mai's mouth.

"She's not breathing," Ty Lee said.

"We need to pump it out of her," Suki said. Leaning forward so that the edge of the driftwood pressed against her stomach, Suki pushed her fingers in Mai's mouth, swiping the interior in a circular fashion as she tipped Mai on her side.

More water flowed from her. Ty Lee had her hand on her wrist, and she said, "I don't hear her heart." Her face was pale with worry and the cold.

"We'll do everything we can," Suki said as she cupped Mai's face in her hand and used her fingers to jut her jaw open. "It would be easier if we were on land," she muttered as she put her mouth to Mai's, fingers pinching her nose closed, and blew hard enough for Mai's chest to rise woodenly. Then she put her hands, wrapped together into a single fist, and pushed down on her chest in a rhythm that vaguely mimicked a heartbeat.

Azula bit her lip when Suki went to blow again, and then to push, blow and push, while Mai just sat there, as if nothing Suki was doing mattered. Nothing happened. "You're not doing it hard enough—you're too weak!" Azula pulled Suki away from Mai by the rope still tethered to her wrist. Suki fell backwards into the water with a yell and a crash as Azula clambered onto the piece of driftwood. Her weight pushed it deeper into the ocean, and the water rose, buoying Mai as her hair spread around her like a black sun, and she almost floated away until Azula grabbed her wrist. "Keep it steady, idiots!" she shouted as she slid back into the ocean and the driftwood bobbed again to the surface.

"It won't support you both," Suki said, like Azula didn't know that.

"Then perhaps you should support the wood yourselves," Azula said in her most scathing voice. "It might not be strong enough to support one person, but we are. So interlock your arms underneath it and hold it steady."

They did as she told them, and Azula was able to climb onto the wood until she straddled Mai's torso, clasping her ribs tight with her knees, as she put her palms over Mai's chest, achieving leverage that Suki had been unable to find. She pushed her chest in the same rhythm that Suki had used, bending to blow air into Mai's mouth every minute or so, until Mai began to vomit up their breakfast and their tea and the ocean she had swallowed.

Azula held her on her side so that she could let it all go without choking on it, and then, when it seemed Mai was done, she let her fall back again, her chest heaving, as she gulped down air. Azula reached for her, to pull her wet hair from her face, to feel the heady pulse of life pumping through Mai's body, to press up right against it with her palm, but Mai caught her wrist with one hand, and with the other she pressed her palm against Azula's chest, holding her back. Mai said, voice hitched with pain and not quite enough breath, "I told you to leave me alone!" She shoved Azula, hard, and she tumbled into the water, spinning through the wet darkness, her hands groping for the rope that would lead her the right way up towards air, and she broke the surface, choking and gasping, her own fist pressed tight over the place where Mai had touched her.

"You're welcome," Azula said. "Did you lose your manners along with your clothes?"

The three girls turned towards her, and as one, said, "Shut up."

Azula clutched the drift wood at a spot that was well out of reach of Mai's hands, and said, "This is a fine mess we're in. We're probably going to die out here because somebody had to pick up a stray." She glared at Suki.

Mai's voice, still weak but not weak enough to hide her resentment, said, "I refuse to die for you, Azula."

"If I were you, I'd direct your anger towards Suki. This was all her idea."

"We know that you went along with it because you were hoping you could use her to betray us," Mai said. "I know you."

"Azula," Ty Lee said. She looked small and vulnerable and sad. "Is that true?"

Azula ignored them. "Suki practically insisted we pick up Hama. This was probably your plan all along, wasn't it? You knew that Hama would love to get her hands on the princess of the Fire Nation, and you decided you would get rid of me without doing it yourself. Too bad you didn't count on Hama just washing you overboard with the rest of us so she could sail straight to the Southern Water Tribe on our ship!" She lunged forward, gripping Suki's forearm, fingers sinking into the narrow spaces between bone, and hissed in the soft gasp of air that escaped Suki's open mouth, "You're going to have to try harder than that to kill me!"

Suki slapped Azula's cheek with her free palm, but Azula just squeezed tighter.

"This isn't about you," Suki said. "This was never about you and it was always about getting a poor woman home because the Fire Nation decided to take benders from their home and imprison them!" She slapped Azula again, harder this time, hard enough to make her teeth ring and her vision blur. "You think it was just the waterbenders? It was the earthbenders too."

"They shouldn't have been so weak!"

"It should be okay to be weak," Suki shouted. "Just because you're weak doesn't mean that you forfeit your home and family and safety! How would you feel if someone took you from your parents when you were too young to fight back, too young to crawl? How would you have liked that? Isn't that what happened to your own mother? Banished because she was one woman who couldn't stand up to your father and your grandfather and the armies he commanded? Did she deserve it? Should she have been stronger? Or how about now? Did you feel safe, Azula, for a single second? Or were you always afraid that your father would abandon you like he abandoned Zuko, that he'd banish you like he banished him and your mother, that he'd turn on you, eventually. Did you feel that you were never working hard enough, that no matter what, you'd never be strong enough to satisfy him because how could one little girl ever measure up to a fully grown man and his armies? Don't you ever think that maybe he should have been kinder instead of that you should have been stronger?"

Azula gaped, not even really there in the water anymore, but standing beside her father as he told her he was leaving her behind, crying that he was treating her like Zuko, his impatient iteration that she silence herself, like she really was just a child after all she had done for him. Then her consolation prize of being Firelord when no one had been there for her coronation, too busy they were, looking to the east to see the new sun rising as he burned the entire Earth Kingdom down, and the only person who had come was her brother to take it all away from her. "That's not what happened," she said rapidly, realizing that her pause, the things left unsaid, was filling the space between them. "That's not what happened with me or my mother at all." She let go of Suki's arm and turned her gaze away. The storm was easing, and soon the waters would be calm again. "We should focus our energies on trying to get out of here. Nothing else will matter if we die."

The storm had already begun to dissipate, but soon it was gone completely, leaving nothing but a blinding sun to continue climbing the sky. Luckily, a small merchant ship picked them up after only half a day of clinging to the driftwood, each girl taking turns with who would lie on top of it to rest their weary muscles. Burnt by the sun, skin raw and red from the chafing salt, they collapsed nearly instantaneously on the deck after they had been hauled up like a sack of fish. Azula struggled to her feet first, hands clutching the mast as she requested safe passage.

"We're heading towards the village of Hira'a," the captain said. "That alright with you?"

Azula blinked the ocean water from her eyes, sure she had misheard. "Excuse me?"

"Hira'a," he said. "That is where we are traveling, and you are welcome to join us. But we will not be making land elsewhere."

Azula clutched the mast as she laughed. It was like drowning, she couldn't breathe through her laughter, and she couldn't stop even though she tried.

Ty Lee slipped her hand into Azula's, as she whispered, "Hey, are you okay?" She threaded her fingers through Azula's dank hair and pulled, hard enough to jerk her head up, hard enough to pull Azula back into her skin.

Azula's laughter died, and Ty Lee let her go.

The captain stared between the two of them. "I'm afraid I don't understand the joke."

"She's a little sun sick," Suki said. "I think we all are, actually."

"Don't presume to speak for me!" Azula snarled. Then she breathed, struggling to compose herself as she stood straight and wiped her eyes with her fingers. "Hira'a is my mother's village before she married my father. I am looking for her, you see."

The captain nodded. "Then I suppose it's lucky we're the ones who found you."

"Yes," Azula said sourly as she folded her arms over her chest, "I suppose it is lucky."

She glowered as she watched the passage of the vessel through the water. There was no way that Ursa would have returned home. It would have been the first place that Father would have looked for her. Ursa wasn't the type to return home, cowed and broken. No, that wasn't her at all. She had murdered, she had left in the middle of the night without saying goodbye. She wouldn't have returned home as if nothing had happened.

It wouldn't be so easy—would it?


	21. What the Surf Dragged In

Mai slept for a day after nearly drowning when Hama had thrown them overboard. She wasn't one to sleep for longer than needed. She went to bed early, she rose early, and she always found something to do. It hadn't always been that way. Before she had found her knives, before she had developed her skill, before she had realized her untapped potential, she had slept all the time because she was bored all the time, and she needed to escape the sun scraping across the sky. It was always too bright and too orange, and once she had told her mother, in a fit, that she would sleep and sleep until she died for all the interest the world held for her.

But then she had met Azula. She had met Ty Lee with her too pink outfits. She had discovered her knives.

She slept less after that, choosing instead to hone her body until it was a weapon as tempered as steel and metal. And why wouldn't someone use her like one? She had practically cast herself at their feet—use me—because without that, what other purpose was there?

She woke, coughing up on the memories of sea water logged in her throat, wiping her mouth with her wrist. She had been wrapped in a blanket because her outer clothes were floating in the ocean somewhere. The same long robes that had hidden her knives. They were gone, again, stripped from her by Azula who had had no right.

She put her fingers to her mouth, leaned over the side of the bunk where someone had put a bucket, and dry heaved.

At least Azula hadn't taken everything from her-but still too much. Mai huddled closer under the blankets and listened to the tread of feet above her, the quiet orders of a captain shouting.

The blanket itched and she hated it.

The soft pad of footsteps alerted her, and she raised her head. Ty Lee was there, peering at her from the entrance to the hold, her braid still limp and bedraggled.

"Mai," she called. "How are you feeling?"

"Like debris," Mai said, slumping back, still too weak.

Ty Lee climbed down the ladder and settled beside Mai on the bed, lifting her legs and placing them in her lap, as her clever fingers began to knead her knotted muscles.

"I'm so glad that Azula found you," Ty Lee whispered. "I thought you were gone. I looked and looked everywhere. But not long enough, I guess." She bowed her head as if she were ashamed.

Mai covered her eyes with her arm to block out the dim light that filtered through the wood. "I don't want to talk about Azula. And I don't blame you for anything. I know you tried."

There was a brief silence, and Mai was afraid that Ty Lee would insist that she should have tried harder. Mai wouldn't be able to stand it if she did. Instead, Ty Lee said, "I understand that you don't want to talk about Azula. You were very angry with her. You were almost scary-but you're always scary if you're not being gloomy." Ty Lee put her hands over her mouth and laughed, like she didn't mean it seriously.

"Do you?" Mai sighed. "Because we're talking about her right now like we always do. You never get tired of it because you're more in love with her every day."

Ty Lee tried to tickle the tops of Mai's knees. "Would that be so horrible?"

"I just don't understand why," Mai said. They had talked about this before. She would never understand-she should let it go, and let Ty Lee get her heart broken all over again. After all, she had tried to warn her, but sometimes Ty Lee didn't want to listen. "You should have been the one, not me. You would think it romantic, Azula saving you."

Ty Lee set Mai's legs aside, and crawled towards her so that she could lay beside her. "I don't know how to describe, but it just feels right. And look, she's changing. She saved you! She didn't have to do that."

Mai snorted. Saved her—sure. Probably another part of the plan to fool everyone that she was different, just like she had pretended she hadn't wanted to rescue Hama when that was her goal all along, even if she had failed in turning Hama against them. Azula could never be different than who she was. Mai sighed, hating what she was about to say next. "Azula will never love you back. I know this because we're the same in this way. We don't love people because there's something wrong with us. Maybe that's what I saw in her the first time we met. This ability to see people and not love them. Not to really love them."

Ty Lee was silent beside her. Then she sat up, her hands clasped tightly together, her head shaking so that her braid swung to and fro, slapping Mai's cheeks with their damp ends. "You told Azula that you loved Zuko."

"It was the easiest way to explain what happened," Mai said. "And I do feel for Zuko. But sometimes, I hear people talking about their great loves, and I think it's not like what I feel towards him. Even though I would do anything for him, even though I would never want to break up. But it's not love like other people describe love, not like real love. Not like you love. Maybe it's just the strongest thing a big blah like me is able to feel towards someone, but that's not something you can say when you're standing up to the person who was supposed to be your friend." She said that to be funny, to lighten the mood, and Mai paused so that Ty Lee would giggle, but she didn't. There was just the creaking of the ship, and the sloshing of the ocean against the hull. So Mai went on. "And us? We're friends, but I don't feel like you do. You know it. But you're good about it, because that's who you are. You're a good person."

"We're different people. That's to be expected."

Mai pushed Ty Lee away, the braid sliding from her wrist. "It's more than different. I'm not stupid."

Ty Lee knelt beside her. "I'm sorry I don't understand," she whispered. "You feel something that you don't think its right, but you're wrong. I'll take whatever you have to give me, even if you think it's not what I want or what I need. Because I don't want anything that you don't have to give me. We've always worked well together, haven't we? We work because we don't ask for things we can't give."

"Except for Azula," Mai whispered, feeling sick again in her belly.

Ty Lee threaded her fingers with Mai's. "Except for Azula." Ty Lee pressed a quick kiss to Mai's cheek. "But we need to get up now," she said sincerely. "The captain told me it was time to fetch you."

Since they had lost their money, the captain had agreed to let them work to pay their fare. It was harder than before on their own little boat, and the girls passed out exhausted below deck every night (except when it was their turn to keep night watch). Their nails were split, their skin rough with callouses, and their muscles grew stronger in different ways, aching the good, bone deep ache that meant they tore and knit themselves anew.

Mai was grateful for the work, even though it was entirely beneath her, because it was easy to ignore Azula. They worked on different parts of the ship, and they both fell asleep too quickly to speak. Still, sometimes when Mai scrubbed the decks or descended on ropes to pick off the barnacles that attached themselves to the hull, she felt Azula's hands dragging her, felt her mouth on hers, and the familiar angry bitterness would come, and she would clutch her scrub brush harder, and was glad it moved against wood instead of flesh because if she could make Azula bleed, she would. She would turn the ocean Fire Nation red with Azula's blood, if she could.

She could be at the palace, lounging with Zuko. She could be at Ba Sing Se. She could be on their way home instead of sailing further and further from the end of their journey with each passing day.

They were sailing towards Fire Nation territory, not away from it, and when one was banished, you went away, with eyes turned towards home, even when it was too far away to be seen anymore.

Azula was right (she thought, resentfully). They would never find Ursa at this place.

But Azula didn't care because the longer this took, the longer she had to play with them. The longer she had to restore her bending, so she could truly move against them.

Eventually, they reached their final docking place. They bowed—even Azula bowed—their gratitude towards the captain who had rescued them, and let them stay on their ship.

Mai's back ached and her stomach gnawed with hunger, tired of the frugal rations they had distributed on the ship. And they were still without money, still without a ship, still without suitable clothes or shoes. Not for the first time, Mai wondered how Zuko had managed to be banished for three whole years.

"This is a relief," Azula said. "We escape the drudgery of the ship only to trudge our way to my mother's old home."

"Are you ready?" Suki said.

Azula's face faltered before she smoothed her hair and began to lead the way. Mai wondered how Suki could let her. "Of course, I'm ready. How else am I to return home until I restore my honor? Haven't you been listening?"

Mai rolled her eyes. This old song.

They followed her, easily catching up with the slow pace she had set. Azula tried to fall in beside Mai, but Mai turned sharp, putting Suki on her left, Ty Lee on her right.

"Are you still giving me the cold shoulder?" Azula said, a hard smile glinting around her teeth. "Remind me not to save you next time. It was generous of me, considering how you betrayed me and how you're acting now."

"If you'd really saved my life just to save it," Mai said, "you wouldn't be holding it over my head like a favor I owe you."

"Can we not argue?" Suki said, stifling a yawn with her hand. "We're tired. We're grumpy. We're only going to say words we'll regret in the morning after we've rested."

They fell into silence, and kept walking until they found Ursa's home, abandoned and dilapidated on the edge of the village. They stumbled over the threshold, and fell asleep on the floor, dirty with dust and earth that had blown through the flapping door, which they propped shut with their small bags.

Mai woke early though, perhaps because the floor did not rock with the beating breath of the ocean, pushing and pulling them somewhere far from home, or maybe it was because the hard floor bit into her shoulder blades. Whatever the reason, it was impossible to sleep again.

She got up slowly, stretching until her back popped, easing some of the tension in her spine. The door was open, and a cool sea breeze came through it, leaving goosebumps over her arms. She shivered as she stepped outside, as she saw the stars just beginning to fade into the dawn. A blush of pink rose over the horizon, and she scowled.

"Too colorful for you?" Azula said, somewhere to her left. "You might want to go back in then. There's nothing but grey dreariness in there. You'd like that."

Mai cursed herself for not noticing that Azula had not been sleeping with the others. Or perhaps she had noticed and she hadn't cared or she had cared too much. Her head ached, and she rubbed her temples with her fingers. "Why won't you leave me alone?"

Azula sidled towards her, fingers running along the wall of Ursa's old home. "I was here first. You're the one who joined me. Maybe you're the one who doesn't want to be alone."

"I don't want to be with you," Mai said, but she didn't turn away and she didn't leave. Azula crept closer until Mai could feel her body heat. She didn't want to give Azula the satisfaction of backing away, so she stayed still, her eyes sharp. "You always take my knives, and lose them."

Azula's eyebrow arched, and she laughed. "Excuse me for not saving them instead of you. Next time, I'll tell the water not to weigh so much."

"I thought you were too strong to be beaten by something so common as nature," Mai said. "Isn't that what you always say? Weren't you the one who told your soldiers that the tide had already decided to kill them while you were still mulling it over when you demanded them to defy sense and the entire ocean just so you could make port when you wanted to?"

Azula's face soured, and she turned away from Mai.

"You shouldn't have taken my things," Mai said. "You don't get to take what you want from me anymore, even if Ty Lee lets you do it to her."

"Are you jealous, Mai, of me for something you already have? Don't think I haven't heard you and Ty Lee being so very friendly together." Azula tapped her chin. "What would Zuzu say if I were to tell him how close you two have become? What good friends you are?"

Mai's eyes slid from Azula's face so she didn't have to look at that smirking scorn. "Zuko would know that you were telling lies because you're jealous."

"I don't get jealous of other people. Other people get jealous of me."

"Of course they do," Mai agreed, sarcastically. "You always need to be better than people, always need to one-up them. What are you trying to prove, Azula?"

"That's a lie," Azula said. "You always one-up me in the gloom and doom department. I've never seen anyone without so much passion. Zuzu was right when he called you a giant blah. I don't know how I tolerated you for so many years." Azula smoothed her hair with her palms.

Mai glared, held her arms closer to her sides. How had she endured this from Azula for so long? Or was this something new? Why would she say these things after saving her from drowning? Azula was capable of murder, had always been capable of it, had terrorized turtle-ducks and a boy who was just two years younger than her—or rather, had attempted to. Sometimes, Mai's knees felt just as weak as they had first gone when she heard the news that Azula had failed in killing the Avatar—even if it wasn't for lack of trying. She wondered if Azula had ever felt the same way. If she had given the credit to Zuko because it somehow distanced her from the act. If Zuko's shady assurance that yes, he was sure that the Avatar was dead, had brought some small relief that she, at fourteen, had finally killed someone. Maybe Azula could still feel guilt. Mai shook her head. It didn't matter. Azula had tried to kill someone and had only failed because Katara was more skilled than she. Actions were truer than words. The end. It would have been easy for Azula to let her drown, to basically kill her, but she hadn't. Mai hated her for it, hated the questions she was being forced to asked, hating that the person who had hurt her so much, had saved her too. It was confusing.

Azula slid closer to Mai, one shoulder raised, eyes dangerous and predatory. She jutted forward, leaning sharply at her waist, voice sour and shrill. "Are you going to thank me for saving you now that we've had this heart to heart?"

This time, Mai stepped back until the wall of Ursa's small hut pressed firmly against her back. "This wasn't a heart to heart."

"Would you rather have died at the bottom of the ocean? Imagine what Zuko would say to that." She pitched her voice higher. "Oh Azula, why didn't you save Mai, my last and only love." Her voice shifted again to her normal tone. "Oh I'm sorry Zuzu, but Mai just wouldn't let me save her. She'd rather die than accept my help because the loathsomeness of that outweighed her desire to see your face! But then again—" she paused, her palm covering her left eye—"who could blame you?"

Mai reached for the knives that should have been there but were still at the bottom of the ocean. "Ha. Ha. Ha. Very funny. Like you haven't told that joke before."

Azula feigned a pout. "Just because it's been told before doesn't mean it's not funny. But what's even funnier is that you're still not thanking me."

Mai glared at her, then sighed. "You want to talk about this now? Fine. I'm not going to thank you because I shouldn't have to. You're holding it over me like I owe you now. I don't owe you anything, and I never will. You're like my parents, always making me choose between them with a kind word or a gift-until Tom-Tom came, and then even you wanted me to give him up." Mai turned away, crouching in the lingering shadows of the dawn, away from the shafts of sunlight rising over the tops of the old dead volcanoes, hurting her eyes, making them ache. "It's just a game to you, like everything else."

Azula loomed over her, looking down on her with her arms folded across her chest. Mai stood up again, quickly, no longer caring about the bright sun, so that Azula could not be in that position above her. Azula refused to step back, and so did Mai, so they stood too close to each other, close enough to feel the rise and fall of their breaths, their body heat against the chill morning air.

"Let me explain something to you," Azula said, the words falling in a hot veil against Mai's face. "I saved you because if I hadn't, my brother wouldn't have welcomed me back, no matter who I bought with me. Of course," she added, "I never expected him to accept my return with an open armed embrace, but better a cold shoulder than no welcome at all. And believe me, he would have nothing but cold fire if I returned without you." Azula turned away, looking carelessly over her shoulder and smiling as she did so. "See, not everything is a game. It's strategy, something you were never very good at."

Mai sighed. It wasn't fair that Azula could kill with her hands and save with her hands and smile the whole time like there wasn't a difference between them. "I should have thought about that," Mai said, the words coming slowly from her mouth, as if her voice and tongue were divided from each other.

"Yes, you should have," Azula said. "You are usually so much better at perceiving these things. Perhaps you have a blind spot when it comes to me. But who wouldn't? Even Zuzu does. Why else would he have let me go?"

"I trust the blind spot is mutual," Mai said.

Azula's lips twisted around her teeth as she laughed. "Trust is for fools, and I'm a fool no longer."

"Neither am I," Mai said.

She still felt like one though, and she hated herself for that.


	22. Interlude: Azula's Gift

Zuko was not an early riser, so Azula was not surprised when she had to climb onto his bed, shake his shoulder, and whisper in his ear, "Come on, Dum-Dum. Have you forgotten already? It's time to rise with the sun."

And Zuko pushed against her lazily, his hands fisted against her shoulders as he yawned hugely, saying something vaguely like, "Come on, Azula, get off me."

She reached for the coverlets, stripping them from him until the cool morning air hit his bare skin, and he yelped as he tried to tuck his legs to his stomach, but she sat on him with her arms crossed over her chest. "Come on, Zuko. You should be the one waking me up since you're the eldest."

That got him moving, and he trailed after her as she slipped down the halls of their home in Ember Island. "I always hope that this is the morning," she whispered, "that we'll see Dad too rising with the sun, that we'll see him firebending, and then for once it will just be him and the sun and us, and he'll say, let me teach you, and he would teach us all the things we never learn in school."

"Dad's never taught me anything," Zuko said.

"Well obviously." Azula paced through the courtyard. The sun hadn't quite risen yet, and the horizon was just beginning to blush pink. "You'd bore him."

"I know," Zuko said, his voice grumpy.

Azula abandoned the courtyard and ran through the grass, her feet getting wet from the dew, skin pricking with the cold of it. She ran up the small knoll that faced out towards the sea, and gestured for Zuko to follow her. Together, they waited until they could see the yellow glow of the sun glinting against the water, and then they began.

Azula dropped into the most basic firebending stance and, when Zuko didn't follow suit, she cleared her throat. "Don't think I wasted all that time dragging you here for you to do nothing."

He rolled his eyes. "I know this, Azula. You don't need to insult me. It's not like father has trained you either. You don't know more than me. I'm not entirely stupid."

"I do this every morning, and I won't have you ruining it because you think you're beneath it."

The tops of Zuko's ears flushed red and he followed her hastily, clumsily. "Oh."

She sighed as she walked towards him. She moved his elbow so that it was just a bit steadier, kicked his feet farther apart so that his stance was broader, his root firmer. "No wonder you can barely firebend," she said. "How often do you practice your basics? You're sloppy."

"I don't know," Zuko said. "I haven't done something as basic as this for a while. This is the first thing we learn, isn't it? Father will never be impressed with this."

"Everything comes from this," Azula said. She resumed her own stance once she was mostly satisfied with the way that Zuko held himself. She filled her lungs with air to fuel the fire pit in her stomach. "If you can't do this perfectly, without thinking, then you'll never be able to do anything. Even the most elaborate bending is based in these basic stances." She knew this because she had snuck into the Fire Sages' secret libraries, reading their scrolls of bending. "Watch me," she instructed. She breathed, and began a series of forms that were technically more difficult than someone her age should be able to perform. She did them slowly, and as she did them, she showed Zuko the basic stance that rooted the form. There was something like satisfaction as she saw the spark of realization light his eye, the way he started to smile as he watched her, the way his hands began to clap.

She stopped to wipe the sweat from her eyes.

"I see," he said. "I see it now." He began to breathe deeply, his palms guiding it to his stomach.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"I'm going to try!"

"You can't just skip everything in between!" Azula said. "You need to learn it all or else your fire will be weak because you're not connected to it. You think I skipped the boring parts in between? I didn't. It just looks like I did because I'm good at it."

"Okay," Zuko said. "Show off."

"If you can't handle a demonstration then maybe you'd like to train all by yourself? Good luck with that."

Zuko looked stricken. "No, don't, Azula, I didn't mean it."

Azula glared at him, frowning, tapping her chin as she pretended to consider what he'd said. She liked it when Zuko begged. Even though he was bigger than her, older than her, he looked so small and insignificant and untalented beside her. "Don't embarrass yourself, brother." She guided him by his elbow until they stood beside each other and breathed in the sun. "Let's start again. No more interruptions. We need to be serious about this or not do it at all."

They reviewed the basic steps until Zuko lost the rough edge of his body falling clumsily into them, until he flowed into the different forms like orange and yellow flames moved into one another—each one unique, but connected, and ready to grow into something greater.

Then she made him go through them again. They did it until it was no longer morning and the sun rose high above them. They did it until the sweat ran down their skin, soaking their clothes. They did it until both their eyes closed and they moved as one by merely feeling the other's presence. She had frequently repeated the forms until she fell into the rote of it, the trance of it, the comforting repetition of it, but it was different doing it with someone else. It was almost better, somehow.

She could tell he was tired, but she didn't care. This was what it took to become a great firebender. But still, when they finished the set he put his hands in the formal position of respect and bowed. "Sifu Azula, may we please proceed to the next level."

She smiled at that. It did sound very nice, being spoken to like that. Still, she exaggerated a pose of thoughtfulness as she paced around him, examining his root which was, to be honest, the strongest she had ever seen it, and it was because of her efforts. "I suppose we can do it once more, before we proceed," she said.

He covered his irritation well, but she saw it in the narrow set of his lips, the twitch in his eye, but he did it anyway, and he did it perfectly.

They never had a chance to proceed because Li and Lo appeared on the crest of the hill. They flapped their old hand against their faces as they panted for breath, and told them in gasping words that they were too old for this, and that their parents wished to see them as it was time to eat. Zuko shouted happily, and Azula joined him, shrieking, "I challenge you to a race, Zuko! Last one to Father bears shame and humiliation forever!"

She was quicker on her feet, and so she soon overtook him, tired as he was from working so hard on his firebending. It was almost too easy, and Azula, not for the first time, wished for a sibling who could keep up with her a little better than Zuko did (but not enough to supersede her—just enough to make it challenging). She skidded to a stop just outside the courtyard where she could hear the stiff voices of her father and mother. She peeked through the narrowly parted curtains, grunting softly when Zuko windmilled into her, plowing her into the ground with him falling on top of her. She kicked him hard in the shins as she climbed to her feet. "What's the matter with you," she hissed as she gave him her hand to help him up.

"What are you waiting for?" Zuko asked, angry that he had lost. "And why are we whispering?"

"You, dum-dum," Azula snapped back. "I can tell from father's tone that he is upset about something. It would hardly do for either of us to barrel towards them as if we were some kind of savages, or for us to have some kind of argument that they could hear."

"Oh," Zuko said.

Azula rolled her eyes as she brushed the grass from his coat. "Let's go."

Tea steamed from the small, fragile cups that had been set at their places. Ursa was reading one of the scrolls that had been delivered that morning since she kept the affairs of Azulon's house in order since the death of his wife. Ozai sat opposite her, his face knit with frustration as he looked out towards the beach, looking for them, Azula realized. He had wanted to start earlier, and they had kept him waiting.

"Sorry we're late, Father. Li and Lo were so slow coming to find us."

"Enough," Ozai said, as he picked up his chopsticks and began to eat his rice.

Ursa rolled her scroll and put it aside. "Are you alright, Zuko? You look out of breath, flushed."

"We were racing," Zuko said. "Azula challenged me."

Ozai paused. "And who won?"

Zuko looked down at his food. "Azula did." The works came grudgingly from his mouth.

Azula looked at her father but he didn't say anything as he went back to his own scrolls. She frowned, her fingers clenching against her skin. Could he not spare one single word of praise for her?

"Perhaps you should try harder," Ozai said.

Apparently beating her brother was no longer an accomplishment.

Azula scowled at her food, then looked over at Ursa, who had reached for Zuko's hand. "There's no shame in losing, Zuko."

But she was wrong. There was shame in losing. Nobody wanted to be a loser. Losers weren't crowned Firelord. Losers weren't respected or feared or loved.

Zuko smiled at her—that weak, grateful smile of his that always made Mom pat his shoulder and smile back. It made Azula's skin crawl.

"Thanks, Mom."

"I wish you wouldn't tell him that, Ursa," Ozai said around his rice.

Ursa let go of Zuko's hand to drink her tea, only looking up when Li and Lo approached in order to wait on them. "Where did you find the children?" she asked.

"We were practicing our firebending," Azula said before they could answer. It irritated her that Ursa had asked them instead of her or Zuko. Did she not trust them to tell the truth? Did she not even trust Zuko when he was with her?

Li and Lo nodded in agreement.

"Both of you together?" Ursa said.

"How else would it be?" Azula said, casually. "Isn't that what we should be doing as brother and sister? I told we were going to."

"Of course," Ursa said. "I just did not believe you actually meant it."

Ozai put down his chopsticks gently. "I think we should make this more interesting, more of a challenge. When I was a young boy—" and it was so impossible to imagine him as a boy—"my father initiated a contest between Iroh and myself to test our skill. The boy who defeated the other first won, and was duly rewarded." His lips tightened into something resembling a smile. "What do you say, Zuko?" He reached for his cup of jasmine tea, and sipped it.

"Ozai," Ursa said, "we don't need to do it that way. They can train together, and then show us what they've learned from each other when they're ready."

Ozai put down his tea very precisely, very deliberately. "That's hardly enough to drive them. And some of us—" his eye strayed towards Zuko—"could use more drive and ambition. I can think of no one better than Azula to help Zuko find his fire."

Azula's cheeks flushed with pride.

"There are other ways, Ozai."

Azula hated that her mother did not want her to work with Zuko, no matter how frequently she said that she was okay with it.

"But none that work so well," Ozai said. "It was good for me and my brother. It will be the same for Azula and Zuko."

Azula wondered at that. She knew her father's true feelings for her uncle. Across the table, Zuko sighed, already resigning himself to defeat like a baby. They finished their meal in silence, and they left in silence when their father rose and their mother sat still and silent with her cold tea, before very quietly giving them permission to go and play.

Zuko took off immediately, but Azula lingered. Her mother's head was bowed, her frail-looking hands circled around the tea cup without moving. "It's going to be fine, Mom," she said.

Ursa did not bother to raise her head. "What is?"

"Everything. You'll see," Azula said as she left the room. She easily caught up with Zuko, who was walking slowly down the long stretch of beach. His shoulders were hunched, his feet shuffling. Sand billowed with every step. She took his hand, stopping him from his drudgery, and he did not pull away. "Why so sad, Zuko?"

"Because nothing's going to change. You're going to beat me, no matter how much I improve, and Father won't see anything in me, ever."

"With that attitude you're right—you'll never beat me. Of course, I am unbeatable but that doesn't mean you shouldn't even try."

"I can't win, and I don't want to fight you, Azula." He gripped her hand tightly. "It was nice just practicing with you, wasn't it?"

"It will be nice fighting each other, too. It's not like it's a real fight, a real Agni-Kai."

"I don't like fighting. I don't like how everyone expects me to want to fight you. Why do you think Dad likes you best? It's because you thrive on stuff like that, and I don't. I don't enjoy it. I'd rather just be with you."

"Fighting me is being with me," Azula said. "It's not like I'm going to hurt you." Though she could, if she wanted to. She could even make it look like an accident, if she wanted to. People got hurt all the time.

"It would be more fun if we weren't fighting."

"For you, maybe." Azula sighed and pulled him by his shoulder as they resumed their slow walk down the beach. They walked in the surf, the white foam flecking their skin as the tide came in. "This is the way you earn Father's respect and pride. You should be thanking me that things turned out this way because if you succeed, you have the pride of both our parents. If you don't, you still have Mom's, which is more than I've ever had. I don't even know why I'm helping you," she added, rounding on him. "You already have Mom, why do you need Dad too?" But she already knew why. Because Father, when he became Firelord, would need the eldest to succeed him, as was tradition. Father would need her help, even if he didn't know it yet, to groom their family to take over the throne, like he so desperately wanted.

But Zuko didn't understand those things. He never looked that far ahead. He wanted his father, but didn't want to prove himself worthy of his father.

"What are you talking about? Mom loves you," Zuko said. "I keep telling you that. You should believe me for once."

Azula tossed her head. "No, she doesn't. But I'm okay with that. That's fine with me."

"Yes she does," Zuko insisted. "She's not like—" he bit down on their father's name when he caught a glance of the hard glare that Azula leveled his way.

Azula sighed, dramatically. "Oh, Zuko. Do I really need to explain to you how much affection Mom shows you that she doesn't show me? She sits with you by the turtle-duck pond. She touches your hand. She laughs with you. She doesn't do any of those things with me. You might as well admit that you have our mother's favor. Perhaps you can tell me what you've done to earn it?" Azula turned to face him. "I'm helping you, now you help me. It's fair, don't you think?"

"I don't have to do anything," Zuko said defensively. "I'm enough for her."

"Then why aren't I?" Azula shouted. Then she put her hands over her mouth, biting her lips under the cover of her knuckles. She shouldn't have said it that loudly. It was unseemly.

"You are!" Zuko said again. "Mom loves you, she loves you more than Dad love you."

"Don't say that." Azula struggled to keep the creeping shrillness from her voice. "You don't know anything."

"Then neither do you!"

Azula calmed herself. She smoothed her clothes and ran her fingers through her hair. "Let's not argue—it's so unbecoming. Why don't you tell me how Mom loves me, and then I'll believe you."

Zuko stared at her. His mouth opened several times to speak, but then he closed it again, as if there was nothing to say.

"I don't say she doesn't love me because I'm taking it personally. It's just a fact, Zuko." She picked up one of the flat stones at her feet and threw it at a flock of seabirds circling the sand. They fluttered in alarm, and she threw another one at their departing forms. The stone fell short, and Azula listened to its dull splash with something like disappointment.

Zuko glared at the stone and the speck of bird in the distance. "I know enough to tell you that Mom likes that I don't throw stones at scared birds."

"Nothing happened," Azula said. "There was never any chance that they would be harmed."

He shrugged. "She wouldn't like that you threw the stone at all."

Azula stamped her foot. "What am I supposed to do? Nothing?"

"Perhaps," Zuko said. "Would that be so terrible?"

Azula tried to imagine her body sitting perfectly still, at rest, and failed. "You don't understand," she said, almost petulantly if she were childish enough to sound petulant which she most certainly wasn't.

Zuko swallowed, and edged near her, his hand resting on the jut of her elbow. "You're right. I don't. Why is it so terrible not to be mean?"

"Because if you don't, people will walk all over you. They'll hurt you. If you just opened your eyes for once you'd see that's how the world works."

"Is that what you do to the girls at your school?"

She rounded on him so that his hand slipped along the smooth silk of her robe. "What do you know about that?"

"That you challenged someone to an Agni-Kai and won."

She did not correct him.

"People hate training with you because you always win, and you're always mean about it. I've heard Mom talking. She always sounds so sad."

They shouldn't be so disappointed in her. Zuko should be proud to have a sister like her, who was so talented and so amazing and so perfect. But maybe she would try it his way for once. Maybe she would make her mother smile at her for once. "I'm going to give you a gift, Zuko," she said almost dreamily. "I'm going to let you win."

His jaw dropped. "What?"

"It's the only way." Azula rounded on him, finger driving into his chest. "But we have to make it look realistic, or Father won't believe it. You need to look like a worthy opponent, and my defeat will have to look real, but not too real, not real enough that Father—" her voice falter and she swerved away from finishing the sentence. "What do you think?"

"I think that's really nice of you, Azula," he said. "Which you aren't. You aren't nice. At all." He edged away from her.

"Shut up, Zuko. I'm not doing this for you." Her eyes burned, her skin thrummed and vibrated with excitement.

"Azula? You're scaring me—get control of yourself."

She stopped and looked at the red-rimmed flames flickering at her fingertips. "Everything is in control, Zuko." She flexed her fingers into tight fists, and the fire snuffed against her skin. She smiled at him sweetly like any other nice sister would do. "Everything is going to work out perfectly. You'll see."


	23. The Lies They Spoke

Azula entered Ursa's old home after leaving Mai behind to squint in the sunlight. The others were stirring, and Ty Lee sat up to look at her expectantly, as if she should divine wherever her mother had gone from this hovel alone. The night before, Azula had seen how deserted and dilapidated the dwelling was, but now with the sun rising, the place was even more depressing than she had thought.

It was completely empty, except for the ruined mess of shutters, the dusty cobwebs fluttering from the windows, and what appeared to be a small hutch towards the back of the room. Someone had left home and never returned. Not even the dust was disturbed. No one had been here for a very long time, and something scrabbled at the insides of Azula's throat as she surveyed the desolation around her. She could feel the familiar shape of a frown puckering between her brows, the way her mouth dried and swelled with thirst at the same time, the way she could feel strips of screaming frustration peel from her esophagus as she forced herself to swallow it down so no one would hear.

Every place was a dead end. Every decision she had made the wrong one. She would never get her bending at this rate.

"Wow," Mai said, as she leaned against the open doorway, arms folded across her chest. "There's nothing here."

Mai was right of course, and how Azula hated that. All that time, wasted. All that effort for nothing. Azula, hands clenched into fists, strode towards the hutch, and systematically began opening its drawers. The first was empty, except for a thin layer of dust that rose in little clouds as she pulled it open and pushed it closed. The second was the same.

She wondered if she would find the bone comb her mother had been so nostalgic about. She wondered what she would do with it if she found it.

Which was also a useless exercise as the hutch was completely empty. All she had for her efforts were dirty hands, which she wiped clean on her sea-stained trousers.

When she turned back towards the front of the dwelling, she saw that the other girls had shouldered their mostly empty packs, and were waiting for her. "This was disappointing," Azula said, "but we shouldn't let that deter us from our path. We'll speak to the villagers. Surely, they will remember my mother. Maybe one of them might even be able to tell us where she might have gone."

Ty Lee clapped her hands. "That sounds like a great idea, Azula!"

Mai's face soured, and Azula knew that she did not favor the idea of more walking. Well, neither did Azula, but what else were they to do? There was nowhere else to go, and maybe the townsfolk would know of Ursa.

Many people shook their heads when she asked them. They knew of Ursa, of course, but they didn't know her. They could only shrug and wonder what happened to her too. Only one middle-aged woman with streaks of silver in her hair lit up when they asked her, wearily, if she knew Ursa. She invited the girls to walk with her as she went to fetch water from the well, and Suki offered to carry her simple jug because she was such a good-goody. Azula scowled at Suki behind her back, seething.

"Of course I knew Ursa," the woman said. "We used to be best friends before she married Lord Ozai." She bowed her head, and Azula wondered if she still missed her friend, if she wanted her to come back.

Well, that was stupid and silly. Ursa was never coming back, to anyone. Even her grief and regret were ridiculous. This woman should have known that Ursa would not have valued friendship over everything that Ozai offered. But that was what happened when people trusted the people closest to them; they always turned on their so-called friends in the end. She should have known better.

"Did Ursa ever come back after she married Ozai?" Suki said. By this time, they had reached the well and Suki worked the rope to lower the bucket, and bring it back up again.

The woman shook her head. "No, she never did. She never wrote. We never heard from her again. It was as if she died, but we knew she hadn't. We heard about her. Heard about her babies. Heard about her banishment." She bowed her head as she leaned against the stone walls of the well. Her shoulders were bent as if she carried a heavy burden. "Bad business, that was. I can still hardly believe that dear Ursa could be a traitor."

"Oh, you better believe it," Azula said.

"She was so kind, so loving. She was the best friend someone like me could hope for." She put her hand over her heart and squeezed her eyes shut.

Azula was afraid the woman was about to cry, so she scoffed. "Oh yes, I'm sure she was the greatest friend to the people she loved. But what does that mean when they leave you behind without a word." She wondered if Ursa had taken time to say goodbye to this woman before she had left with Ozai.

Behind her, Azula could hear Mai sigh.

The woman looked up then, looked at Azula in the eye so intently that Azula wanted to look elsewhere, maybe at the street vendor selling meat that made her belly twist with hunger, but she wouldn't. She couldn't. "You look like her," she finally said. "You have her eyes, the set of her mouth. You're Azula aren't you?"

"What if I am," Azula said, carelessly, but her eyes skittered over the woman's face, looking for a lie. Not that she would see it, of course. After all she had not seen the lies her friends had told her as they had grown up together, before they had betrayed her. But no one ever said they saw Ursa in her. They only said she was Ozai's daughter.

"You're looking for her." The woman was truly weeping now, and she slid to the ground, hugging her knees close to her. "She never came back, but sometimes soldiers from the palace would come here. Sometimes a terrifying man with an eye on his forehead would join them. They would march up the street, and there was never a reason for them to be there, and so I always wondered if they were looking for Ursa, and I wished so desperately that she would come back, because I would hide her from them, without thought, I would hide her, if only I could see her one more time, if only we could only skip rocks at the lake one more time or swim in its waters. We spent so much time there, together."

"That would have made you a traitor too. You know what my father did to traitors," Azula said, barely realizing she spoke as she considered what Ursa's friend had said. It would have been easier if Ursa had returned to this woman who claimed she would risk everything for her. But why would this woman even bother after Ursa had left her behind for a life at the palace she had later thrown away for nothing? She shook her head. It was so stupid and meaningless.

"She doesn't mean that," Ty Lee was saying. "It would have made you a good friend, the best friend!" Ty Lee's gaze flickered towards Azula once before she reached out to help the woman to her feet.

Ty Lee carried the sloshing jar of water as they accompanied Ursa's friend back to her home. Along the way, she told them what she remembered of Ursa, how she had loved the theatre, how she had loved her long hair and took such care of it, sometimes spending hours on styling it just so. Azula's frown deepened as she listened, and she clenched her own hair, still stiff with salt, between her fingers, tugging and pulling so it hurt. Azula learned about Ursa's laugh, which she had heard so rarely in the palace, but that had supposedly come so easily to Ursa before she had left with Ozai.

"Her smile was so beautiful," the woman said, and Azula tried to remember her mother's smile and could not.

Azula glared and kicked at the small pebbles she found in the street. She watched them skitter, and didn't care about this woman's memories of Ursa. They weren't real. The person this woman remembered didn't exist anymore, if she ever had.

They paused at her doorway. The woman took the jug of water from Ty Lee's hands and set it down at their feet. "I hope you find, Ursa. I hope you find her, and send her home. But first, I hope you would join me for tea."

Azula nodded. "Of course we'll do our best to find her." But she wondered which home Ursa would return to. This one, or the other one? As they filed into the woman's home, Azula lingered behind them. She did not want tea, but she watched the woman prepare the ginseng for a few minutes before looking out the window. Just there was a shimmering line of blue that wasn't the ocean, and she knew it was the lake her mother had once frequented. "Excuse me for a brief moment," she said. "I need to relieve myself."

Azula left the house and, after looking over her shoulder to make sure her babysitters weren't spying on her, she broke into a sprint. Quickly, she left the nice roads of the village and ran through the undergrowth of the surrounding countryside. The ground was warm from the sun, and gnarled with rocks and clumpy earth, but she did not let that slow her down.

Sweat dripped down her skin, and by the time she reached the edge of the lake, she was hot, panting, and sweating. She took deep lungfuls of air, tasting the green smell, and flapping her hands at the hovering insects that made their home in the lake water.

Smooth-faced rocks littered the wet soil, and she bent to pick one up. With a twist of her wrist, she tossed it, and it plopped into the lake with a loud splash. Scowling, she tried again, and again the stone failed to skip. Her hands flexed at her sides as she glared, fixated on the lingering ripples of the water, as she remembered what her mother's friend had said.

They had come here. They had skipped rocks. Why couldn't she do it too? Why did she fail at something even so simple as that?

Azula shook her head, grinding her teeth together. There was nothing here but a stinky body of water and rocks that left her hands dirty.

But Ursa had come here. Ursa had come here often.

Azula wondered how many steps her stone would have skipped.

She wondered if the waters held secrets of her mother, even though that was stupid, water didn't know anything.

Goosebumps pricked her skin through the heat as Azula slowly took off her worn and battered shoes. The rocks hurt her feet, and she stepped gingerly between them until water lapped at her toes and the mud sliming in between them.

Azula closed her eyes, cringing, as she went deeper into the lake. Water rose to her thighs as she walked deeper into it. Her hands sank beneath the surface, and she held very still as she forced herself to close her eyes and breathe.

Ursa had swum in these same waters, but Azula could not, even though there was nothing to fear. There was no storm, there was no waterbender, and the water was not deep enough for her to drown in. She hated that she was still afraid, even after defeating Hama, even after surviving the storm. She shivered when she remembered the ice holding her, and she forced herself to think of something else.

She imagined her mother's hair thick and running with water as she rose up from the depths of the lake, laughing.

It was like thinking about a stranger.

Azula's mouth twisted and her head hung against the glaring sun. There was nothing here for her to find or to follow, just as she had feared, just as she had known there would be nothing.

But she had almost hoped, and Azula wondered if she would ever learn.

Slowly, she turned back, stepping carefully so she would not slip and fall and drown under the limpid surface of the water. Her feet looked distorted beneath the lake, crooked and fracture like light through prisms.

When she was finally free of the water, she put on her shoes without drying her feet for had she no cloth and her clothes were soaked and dripping. She did not run back to the town. She walked, slowly, because her feet had been scraped by the rocks in the lake bottom, and the skin burned with each step.

"Azula!"

It was Ty Lee, and Azula turned slowly towards her. She was running towards her. "We thought you had run away!" She looked angry, as if she were about to cry. "We thought you'd left us behind." Her hands were clenched hard on Azula's shoulders.

Azula stared at her, and shook herself so that she could remember why she was here, and who she was. "As you can see, I haven't. I remember the promises I make. I even keep them now, remember?"

Relief threaded through Ty Lee as she embraced Azula. "You're all wet and gross!"

"I was at the lake my mother apparently frequented," Azula said. Not that a visitor could tell. It wasn't as if the water was whispering her name. It wasn't as if Ursa had left something of herself behind for Azula to find.

"That must have been nice—though you should have gone after tea so that we could have come with you. You didn't have to go there alone," Ty Lee said as she stepped back, her hands clasped. "Did you feel her there?"

"Of course, I didn't, Ty Lee. You know I don't believe in that. It was just some water and some rocks and some bugs. There wasn't anything there."

"C'mon," Ty Lee said, pulling her by the hand. "We're supposed to meet by the well in a few minutes."

Suki and Mai were already there. Mai was glowering as she leaned against the well and, when she saw Azula in her soaked, mud-streaked garments, she put her hand over her nose. "You smell disgusting."

"We thought you had—we were worried about you," Suki said.

She was not a very good liar, but Azula could play along. "As you can see I am perfectly fine. Of course, Ursa never returned home and nobody knows where she might have gone. Why wouldn't I be fine after such good news?" Azula put on her broadest, brightest smile.

"You don't need to be sarcastic," Ty Lee said as she pulled her braid over her shoulder and twisted its lengths between her hands.

"But where are we going to go next?" Mai asked.

"We'll go to Ba Sing Se," Azula said. "Refugees always find their way there eventually. Maybe she did too."

She expected resistance, but there was none. It was almost like old times, Azula thought, as they made their way back to the docks. For once they were listening her. For once, they were obeying her.

It felt good, even though it wasn't real, and it didn't mean anything. The only reason they did was because they didn't have any better ideas themselves.

Ty Lee slipped her hand in Azula's and smiled. "We'll find her. I promise."

"You shouldn't make promises you can't keep, Ty Lee," Azula said, forcing herself to smile. "Soon, people will start calling you a liar, and they'll never stop."

But Ty Lee only laughed. "It was just a nice thing to say. Of course I can't say whether or not we will. But I can hope, and so can you go."

Azula scowled at her. There was no hope. The longer it took to find Ursa, the longer it took for her to restore her bending, the farther everything she needed to do, everything she needed to accomplish, became.

And her father would hold each passing day of his imprisonment against her.

Azula swallowed around the lump that had grown in her throat, and she looked over her shoulder as if she expected to see him there, just like she had seen Ursa in the reflection of the mirror on that day, on that terrible day, when her mother had said she loved her, and that hadn't been real either.

But there were only the mountains and the shimmer of lake on the edge of the horizon, and the way Mai was glowering at her, which was not strange in the least.

Maybe her uncle was right. Maybe she was crazy for expecting to see her father, for thinking she would see her mother in this place.

But no. She shook her head, firmly. Her uncle lied—her uncle always lied. The only thing she was was stupid because she kept letting herself get distracted. All she had to do was focus on the trip to Ba Sing Se, figure out her next move, and everything would be fine, and she would have everything that should have been hers.


	24. The Ostrich Horse

Since their transportation had been commandeered by Hama and because their mission should preferably end sooner rather than later, Azula was in favor of procuring another boat which turned out to be more difficult than she anticipated. She had gone up to a man with a fine boat, and asked that he give it to her because she was the Fire Nation princess, and he would be duly rewarded upon her return. Her claims incited mocking laughter that Azula was unable to stop. She had only stood there, shaking, as he asked her to firebend, as he wondered since when did princesses walk around like filthy peasants. Azula had prepared to strike him, but Suki had her right hand, and Ty Lee her left, and she was powerless as he walked away, still laughing. Behind her, she was sure she heard the other girls giggling behind her back, but when she turned on them, their faces were neutral, and Suki suggested quietly that perhaps they should try another course of action. Azula wanted to steal his boat, but after some petty bickering when Suki refused to even consider the option, they decided not to. Of course, Ty Lee and Mai went along with Suki as they always did these days. It was humiliating, and there was nothing that Azula could do about that either.

They traded work for passage on a small merchant vessel that traded between the Fire Nation islands and the western coast of the Earth Kingdom. The sores on Azula's hands hardened into callouses. Salt crusted her skin and mouth, and she squinted against the rising sun, remembering how once she had welcomed it, how once she had greeted it with her own ribbons of fire.

Now she squinted at the way it glared against the water, and there was no time to practice because they worked from dawn until dusk. The work was exhausting and she fell into deep sleeps as soon as she retired, and she did not wake until she heard the call from the lookout. The vessel also caught fresh fish to trade with the little island villages, so she learned how to gut and filet them so that they would be ready for the various markets at which they stopped.

When they did well, the captain even gave them a cut of the profits, and it felt nice to be able to feel the weight of the coin in her small, leather purse. Of course, she was a princess. She deserved everything they had and more, but she had felt like she had had nothing for so long, that to finally have something was almost intoxicating.

Still, her muscles knotted with exhaustion, but her mind churned restlessly because the physical work was not challenging enough. It was not enough to heave the sail and scrub the deck and prepare the fish. She burned against the repetition, solving the same problem over and over again, with nothing to show for all her effort.

She had once solved the problem of Ba Sing Se, until her uncle had undone all that she had accomplished.

Azula gripped the wooden deck with her hands until the wood splintered underneath her cracked nails.

She considered leading the crew to mutiny and replacing herself as captain, but she did not know where she would go even if she were to take the ship. Taking the ship would be easy, she thought dully, pitching her body to match the push and pull of the water beneath the hull. The captain did not inspire anything beyond the promise of the day's pay from his crewmates. They obeyed him to feed their mouths, and their pathetic families at home. Their inner fires were not stirred, they had no ambition, no killer instinct. They could easily make more gold by attacking the pirates that lurked in these waters, but it did not occur to them. The pirates would be at a disadvantage because of their lack of discipline. Not only would they earn the rewards posted for the pirates' disposal, but they could help themselves to whatever valuables were in the hold. It would make them rich enough to buy themselves off the islands the Fire Nation had forgotten, the ones that could have been Earth Kingdom colonies for all the Fire Nation had once cared for them, and bought a legacy their children could be proud of, if they would willing to forget where the gold had come from.

All she would need to do was whisper about the captain's cowardice, his softness, that he cared more for his gratuitous comfort than the wellbeing of their crew. They would beg her to be their captain within the end of the week. She wouldn't even have to suggest it herself-they would see that she had the innate right to rule and beg her to take his place.

The captain himself would probably surrender to her, as the Earth Kingdom minister had. She would accept, scornfully, of course.

She considered it. Toyed with the idea. Dreamed about it. But it would pose no challenge, and besides, the Avatar and her brother's forces would only find her anyway and bring her screaming back.

They would not fight the Firelord for her. Not men like these.

How could she fight her brother and the Avatar both without her bending when she had been so soundly beaten, when she was supposed to have been too powerful to be defeated—not with the comet in the sky. She ground her teeth and pulled her hair.

She pressed her splintered fingers together, watched the pucker of blood, and counted the throbbing pain.

She could not give her babysitters the slip because the moment she did, they would tell Zuko and the Avatar. She could not be the one to leave them behind-they would have to be the ones to abandon her, and so far, they had not, no matter how much she goaded them. Even though the road had turned so hard, they still worked beside her, Mai thunderously, Suki dutifully, and Ty Lee nearly gladly.

It was insufferable.

They took their leave of the ship when it landed on the shore of a poor Earth Kingdom village. The captain told them not to head too farther east, lest they find themselves lost in the Si Wong Desert, and laughed raucously as if he had said something clever.

They stretched, and Ty Lee flopped on the ground as her eyes closed. "Come sit with me," she called. "It's as if I can still feel the rocking of the ship." She giggled. "It feels funny."

Mai made a disgusted noise. "I want to feel like I'm on firm land again."

Azula stretched her muscles. Everything seemed very far away, and even though the heart of the village was just a short walk from them, it felt as if they were in the middle of nowhere. "The distance to Ba Sing Se isn't going to walk itself if we just sit here like bums."

"Ba Sing Se will still be there," Suki said, "especially now that you aren't there to take it from us. We can rest for the rest of the evening."

"My legs have been cramped by that leaky excuse of a boat," Azula said. "I want to walk, and stretch my legs. I want to Ba Sing Se to find my mother."

Suki put braced her fists against her hips. "And I want to take a moment to rest."

Ty Lee raised her hand from where she was still sprawled in the grass. "I also want to rest. Our auras are wilted and grungy. We need to relax."

Mai glared hatefully towards them. "Can we relax somewhere with a hot bath? I'm disgusting." She sniffed her hands, that still smelled of fish, and shuddered as she made a face.

"The fresh air is the best," Ty Lee said. "Just breathe it in, Mai. You'll feel better."

"I'll feel better when I can sleep on a real bed," Mai said, folding her arms across her chest and glowering. "It would be bearable if I was on the way home, but we're not. We're just going farther and farther away."

"I agree," Azula said, stepping back to fall in line with Mai, who sidestepped away from her. "I also miss home, and I assume that Suki and Ty Lee miss the Kyoshi Warriors." Her lips curled around her teeth in something like a smile. "I would so hate to keep you from your loved ones. Unless you miss the comforts of the palace even more. They are quite luxurious." She looked at Mai sharply. She knew it wasn't true, of course. Mai loved Zuko more than anything. Azula could have given her whatever she wanted if she had only asked. She might have even said yes, once.

"You threw us in a dungeon," Mai said.

Azula shrugged. "So I did. But that was before. This is now, and I'm a different person because I have changed and dutifully learned my lesson."

"Are you changed?" Ty Lee asked. She rolled on her belly, clasping her hands in front of her as if she hoped it were true.

"Of course I am," Azula said. "Can't you see it?"

Suki sighed, heavily. "Azula may be right. We should go, at least to the village to buy supplies so we can get an early start tomorrow."

Azula smiled at the others as she trailed after Suki.

The village had a small selection of trade. There were fish, of course, and Azula was certain that she herself had helped catch some of the fish she saw. There were ash bananas, looking small and pale and not delicious at all. She looked at them with her mouth screwed up in distaste. The bananas must not have been ripe when they were sent here. The mangoes and the papaya were the same, and Azula wrinkled her nose as she wandered the streets, looking for food that would keep them on their journey, and any other essentials they would need to survive the trip.

Azula heard a raucous cry and looked around until she saw a small corral containing a cluster of ostrich horses. She went towards it, slowly, considering. They weren't for sale, but that didn't deter Azula.

One of the ostrich horses was reaching for a bit of grass outside its pen, and it shied away from her as she reached to stroke its beak. It scratched the ground with its talons, spraying her faded trousers with sand. She glared at it as she pushed its head away from her, and went to rejoin Suki and the others, who were clustered together in a tight circle, talking. Probably about her, Azula thought resentfully, as she cleared her throat a little too loudly to announce her presence.

"It'll take a long time to make it to Ba Sing Se on foot," she said as she looked over her shoulder towards the restless ostrich-horses.

Mai sighed. "Tell us something we don't know."

"We won't have to walk all the way," Suki said. "We're going to take the ferry."

"That might as well be all the way," Azula said, rolling her eyes. "We should see about procuring other means of transportation." She gestured towards the ostrich horses.

"We don't have any money," Suki said.

"I'm the Fire Nation Princess," Azula said. "I can just order them to give me the horses. It's not like I'm banished like Zuko was."

Ty Lee almost laughed, but Mai said, "Don't you remember the last time you tried that. They laughed at you."

Azula's gut twisted and it took all her strength not to round on Mai and-do what, exactly? Scratch her across the face, maybe? Ha. Like that would really show her. She hated feeling this helpless, this powerless. So instead Azula smiled at her. "Which is why we should steal four of those steeds before we leave here tonight. After all, if we are so poor, then maybe we should start acting like it instead of like self-righteous goody-goodies."

Suki's brows arched sharply, her lips a knife's edge. "You have a lot of nerve suggesting something like that. As if you haven't stolen enough."

"I don't think it's entirely the same," Azula said. "I took what I wanted, but now I just want to take what I need. There's a difference."

"You don't want to walk all the way, and neither do I. But the weather will be warm enough to be comfortable, especially the closer we come to Ba Sing Se. Farmers will be growing their crops, and there will be enough work to find along the way to feed and support ourselves. We don't need to steal a mount just because you're in a hurry."

"I don't think you speak for all of us. Who are you? A nobody? I'm Azula, princess of the Fire Nation, daughter of Ozai and Ursa. Who are you?"

"We're not in the Fire Nation anymore," Suki said. "We're in the Earth Kingdom where you're a nobody too."

Azula's eyes flicked to Mai and Ty Lee to see where their allegiances fell. They stood behind them, still and unmoving, though their eyes tracked the space between Azula and Suki. Mai would not want to go on foot. She would want the ostrich-mount but would probably choose Suki out of spite or, worse, friendship. Ty Lee would not care. Why would she? Matters of morality were for people who could afford it—not for vagabonds like they had become.

"Very well," Azula said "I know when I'm outvoted. Still, I hope your feet blister on your moral high ground."

She stalked east without looking behind her as she prepared to walk all the way to Ba Sing Se. But the sun was already low behind their backs, and Suki reached for Azula's shoulder, abruptly jerking her to a stop.

Azula gnashed her teeth. "What?"

"It's too late to go anywhere tonight. We should rest here, and then set out at dawn."

Azula bowed, stiffly, and not entirely low enough to be respectful. "I thought we were in a hurry. But whatever you desire—I am at your mercy."

Mai stared at the greying horizon, her arms folded. Her fingers, long and chapped in her fingerless gloves, played with a bit of unraveling thread. "Your mind games are tiresome, Azula."

Azula peered around. "I don't see any games. I'm afraid I don't know what you're talking about." Then she laughed deeply from her stomach. "You sound bitter, Mai. It's a good look on you. It goes well with your gloomy girl who sighs a lot performance." When Mai said nothing in reply, Azula turned towards Suki, hands spread wide. "Where shall we sleep tonight? In that inn over there we can't afford, or under the stars? Mai won't like the last one."

"It'll be a nice night tonight." Suki smelled deeply, and for the first time she almost seemed to smile. "We'll sleep out here. It'll be warm and safe."

They made their way to a strand of trees that reached with straggling roots towards the ground.

"If we're going to just sleep outside, I don't see why we can't get a few miles underway before we do. Just think, we'll be that much closer to Ba Sing Se and home," Azula said.

"Because we're tired," Mai snapped.

Ty Lee agreed. "We can't all be as strong as you, Princess Azula."

Before, Azula had welcomed Ty Lee's flattery, but now it nettled her, dug under her skin. Ty Lee wanted everything to go back to being the same, but it never would be. She stretched beneath the tree first, eyeing where Ty Lee and Mai and Suki settled themselves some little distance from her, and that was fine with Azula.

Once she was off her feet, once she no longer had the momentum to keep going, exhaustion dragged her deeper towards earth, and it was a struggle to keep her eyes open while she waited for the other girls to fall asleep.

When they finally were, Azula stood silently to her feet, gliding through the darkness until she found her way to the corral of ostrich horses, waiting for their masters to come claim them in the morning.

She eyed the flock, waiting for them to become used to her presence and her scent, as she identified the four strongest she would claim for herself and the others. With four horses, she would need to create four paths—three false, and one true. The villagers probably would not be skilled enough to identify the real path, but Mai and Ty Lee would. Suki too, probably.

They would follow her, angrily. She would wait for them under the cover of the brush and scrub, taunt them about how long it took them even though they had only caught up with her because she allowed it.

It would be too inconvenient to return the ostrich horses by the time they realized her theft. Ty Lee and Mai would resist, and Suki, for all her moral superiority, would at the very least be tempted at the prospect of an easier journey towards Ba Sing Se.

But more importantly, it would remind them that the only reason they were still her babysitters was because she had allowed it.

When she was sure that the ostrich horses were used to her presence, she slipped in amidst them. Her hands smoothed their flanks as she gathered their tethers and pulled them after her. She rested her hand on the gate, and turned to look back to make sure that no one had seen her, to make sure she still had the four they would need.

A hard hand gripped her wrist, twisting until the bones ground together, and her knees crumpled towards the ground as she bit back a cry of pain that threatened to reveal to her attacker how very much it hurt. Her mouth dried as she looked up and saw Suki's face, pale and trembling with rage as she prepared to strike.

Azula lunged forward in Suki's moment of hesitation, dropping the tethers and barreling in her stomach, intent on driving Suki to the ground.

She had beaten her once, and she would do it again. Suki had no fans, and she had no fire, so it would be a fair fight.

She wasn't expecting to face Ty Lee's technique in Suki's style though, nor was she prepared for the way her knuckles jabbed those same pressure points that had so hideously weakened her at the prison. "Don't," Suki warned.

But Suki had not struck as expertly as Ty Lee had, so Azula did not listen to her, even though her limbs felt significantly weaker as she struggled to find the strength to push back at Suki, who did not dodge but rather drove her knee in Azula's solar plexus. Azula staggered backwards before falling down. The rocky ground scraped at her thin clothes as she struggled back to her feet, coughing patheticaly for breath. Still, Azula lunged towards Suki who stood between her and the four ostrich horses she had caught, and again Suki blacked her blow and sent her reeling. Azula tripped over her own feet, and blinked up at the cloudy night sky. She couldn't even see the stars.

Suki leaned over her. "Stop fighting. You can't win. Not this time."

Azula snarled as she attempted to kick Suki's feet out from under her, but Suki dodged nimbly aside.

"Fine. If that's how you want it to be."

When Azula struck again, Suki caught her by the hair, and dragged her down the path that would eventually lead to Ba Sing Se as Azula scratched at her wrists, at her face, but Suki held her at arm's length, out of reach.

She was so strong, and Azula was so weak.

They passed Mai and Ty Lee, but as they rose to their feet when they heard Azula's grunts, they did nothing to intervene, nothing to stop Suki.

Suki did not stop until they were well beyond the village and any lightly sleeping villagers. Once they were completely out of sight of the village and ocean, Suki released Azula, and she fell face forward into the ground. The dirt smelled of smoke and ash, and she coughed as she rolled over onto her back, still trying to breathe normally, still trying to see through the tears that had begun to sting her eyes, just like they had stung her eyes on that day, when she had been defeated and humiliated and abandoned.

"I told you that we would not be stealing anything," Suki said as she stared down at Azula.

Still recovering from the blow to her solar plexus, Azula could not have answered even if she wanted to.

"You're in my power now," Suki said. "And I guess you want me to stop all this—stop hauling you around like baggage, stop getting in your way. To just stop so you can do whatever you can to feel like the princess you once were." She shook her head, and she almost looked sad as she stepped back from Azula.

Azula refused to answer as she rubbed at the pained ache in her chest. Firebenders took power from the breath, and Suki had driven that from her early in the fight. Maybe it meant something that Suki was still fighting her like she could bend, or maybe it was just a smart move she used on all her opponents. But it didn't matter. The old Azula would maybe have been able to find a spark somewhere, but now? She was too busy trying to keep from crying like some pathetic, stupid girl. What a disgrace. What an embarrassment.

"Do you know what you would do if our positions were reversed?" Suki continued. Her voice was pitched lower, more threatening. Irrationally, Azula wished that Suki would simply shout at her instead of speaking to her like this. "You'd hurt me." She paced a slow circle around Azula. "You might even finally cross from hurting to killing, as you've tried so many times before. Or maybe you'd throw me in prison, and taunt me about how I could be free if only someone loved me enough to rescue me. Or you'd remind me that I'd never be here if I had been strong enough to defeat you. What do you think, Azula? Do you wish you were strong like me or that someone out there loved you enough to intervene?"

Out of the corner of her eye, Azula saw Ty Lee and Mai watching. Ty Lee's fingers were twitching in her sleeves, as if she wished she had the courage to defy Suki as she had once defied Azula. Mai looked like she was almost smiling like in the days when she reveled in the way that Azula had humiliated and frightened people who were beneath them, who were meant to be used by those in power over them.

"But I'm not going to do any of those things because I'm not like you." Suki turned her back on Azula.

Azula's hand snaked out for a handful of ash and dirt to throw in Suki's face when she faced her again.

But Suki knew, and in one fluid movement her boot pressed down against Azula's wrist. Not hard enough to hurt, just enough to pin. "I'm not invested in you, Azula. I don't care if you get better. I don't care to humiliate you. You're nothing to me. I'm not here for you. I'm here for Ty Lee, because she's a Kyoshi Warrior, just like me, and for some reason, you're still important to her even after everything you've done." She looked away from Azula to Mai and Ty Lee. "Get over here, you two, so I only have to say this once."

They went to her side instantly, those traitors.

Suki spread her arms, encompassing the area around them. "What do you see?"

"A scar," Mai said.

"From a large fire," Ty Lee added.

Suki nodded. "The Fire Nation attacked this village a long time ago, to secure the trade route we just finished sailing. This should be green with grass and forest. It should be beautiful, and it's not."

The first light of dawn rose in the horizon, and they could see it all the better. This was probably why Suki had wanted to wait to continue on to Ba Sing Se. She had wanted them to see, and now they did.

Azula fixed her gaze on the scar of land, and wondered how the flames must have looked in that moment. Not as glorious as their father during the comet, but it would have been enough.

She buried her hand in the charred earth, felt the ash slide against her skin.

"We are not stealing anything from the people Earth Kingdom. We're not going to try to use Azula's position to make things easier for us," Suki said. "Your visit here will not be like last time. Alright?"

Ty Lee and Mai nodded mutely. At Suki's prodding, Azula also nodded.

"We leave as soon as Azula's gotten her breath back," Suki said. "I will prepare our packs for the day's march. The rest of you stay here."

Mai did not disobey Suki's order, but she did wander from Azula, her arms folded across her chest as she turned her back on the rising sun.

Ty Lee crouched beside her, tentatively reaching out to touch her shoulder, like it could mean anything. Azula was too tired to flinch away from her touch.

"You taught her," Azula said, finally. "You taught her what you had never taught me." She hated her. She hated her so much.

Ty Lee's thumbs smoothed the high rises of her cheekbones. "Of course I did, Azula. I'm a Kyoshi Warrior now. It's more than just wearing the green kimonos."

"Does Mai know, too?"

Ty Lee laughed, gently. "Of course she does! I taught her when we were in prison together. It seemed like I should, wouldn't you agree? We had to look out for each other, don't you see?"

Azula pulled away from Ty Lee, turned her back on her. She wished for the comforting blue walls of flame that had once kept everybody out. "You taught everyone, everyone but—"

"But you," Ty Lee said. "Oh, Princess Azula! You could have ordered me to teach you, and I would have, because how could I say no to someone like you? But you thought my skill was just something to compensate for not being a bender instead of for what it was. You saw no real value in it beyond how you could use me to get rid of the benders in your way, and so you never asked."

Azula glared at her, seething, as she felt her pulse return to normal, and as it became easier to breathe. Ty Lee sat next to her, and Azula refused to be the one to move away from her because she had been here first. Eventually, Suki rejoined them, and did not speak as she pushed each girl's pack into their hands.

Silently, they began the long trek to Ba Sing Se, marching through the scar, their feet scuffing clouds of dirt and ash that settled in their clothes and their mouths and their eyes.


	25. Interlude: The Things That We Could Be

"Don't touch me," Zuko said when Azula crept behind him to kick his feet wider apart.

She stepped back, hands flung back in an exaggerated gesture of surrender that meant nothing. "Have it your way, Zuko. Just remember that my reputation isn't riding on your weak understanding of bending. Your stance is terrible. Feet wider apart!"

"If they widen anymore, I'll split in two," Zuko shouted at her.

"Don't exaggerate. I don't understand why you're being such a baby." She demonstrated how wide her stance could be. It wasn't practical in the long run, especially if real combat was involved, but that didn't matter in this moment.

"I'm not flexible enough for that."

Azula rolled her eyes. "Then become more flexible. Maybe we should get Ty Lee to help you."

"Azula!"

"Zuko!" she mimicked, her voice pitched high into a falsetto. She sank into the grass, her legs split around her, to show him how flexible she was. "It takes work, Zuko. You can't just hope you'll be able to do it some day just by crying about how hard everything is."

"Fine," he grunted, attempting to copy her. The fine muscles under his skin shivered with the effort as he pushed himself harder and harder.

Their mornings in Ember Island frequently began with Zuko becoming frustrated during their training, and Azula reminding him that it would take work and effort to perfect what she had already done. It wasn't her fault he wasn't as driven as she had been and was so far behind he'd probably never catch up, no matter how hard they worked together, even if he did learn to trust her eventually.

She could still see that he didn't understand why she was doing this—that he was taking her gift slowly, by piecemeal, as if expecting something poisonous in return, surprised when no harm came to him, when he discovered no lies or trickery.

This must be power, Azula thought. He was mistaken, of course. He had no reason to fear her. She had no interest in bringing him low. She did not need to sabotage him because he did that very well himself. If anything, she'd welcome a challenge. A real challenge.

Maybe one day, Zuko would be up for it.

But for now—"Take a break, Zuko." She stretched herself in the grass under a shaft of sun, and shielded her eyes from the glare with her hand.

He flopped down beside her, panting heavily. Eyes closed, he spoke to her. "I think the only reason you suggested that I spend time with Ty Lee is so that you'd have an excuse to invite her to the palace." He opened one eye, the corners of his mouth upturned almost into a smile.

Azula flushed. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Zuko closed his eyes again, and cradled the back of his skull in his palms. Grass from the knoll stuck to him, smudging his skin lightly green. "Oh, nothing. Just that you might like her."

"I don't think you know what you're talking about, Zuko."

"I think I do," Zuko said. "You don't look half as scary as when you're flustered. You look almost like a regular kid."

"I'm not a regular kid," Azula said. "And neither are you if you'd take one second to stop teasing me like I'm some girl with a silly crush." But Zuko wasn't wrong. It would be nice to see more of Ty Lee, instead of just at school. And if Ty Lee came to help Zuko with his flexibility-well, Mom couldn't find an excuse to say no. And she wouldn't be able to punish Azula by not allowing her to see Ty Lee if Ty Lee was coming over to help Zuko. For once, Zuko had a good idea.

"There's nothing wrong with that," Zuko said, sighing deeply as he lapsed into silence.

She looked at him out of the corner of her eye. There weren't very many sibling alliances in Fire Nation history, she remembered. Most rulers only had one child, but when there were others, there was a history of siblings betraying each other for more power.

Which was probably why Ozai had wanted a second child. He had sensed that Zuko wasn't the ruler that the Fire Nation would need, and he expected that Azula would do what needed to be done when the time came.

Azula thought it was stupid. It was true that the losers were usually weak and probably deserved whatever they received at the hand of their sibling, but most them would have been stronger together.

She knew that if Father had joined Uncle Iroh on his campaigns in the Earth Kingdom that the nation would have fallen by now.

They needed each other, even if they didn't want to, even if it was too late for them.

But Father hadn't gone because he wanted Uncle Iroh to die because that is what people did in war-they died, and they did not come back. It was true that he would have the throne if Uncle Iroh died, but then he would be without the Dragon of the West. Uncle Iroh was a powerful man, even if he would not make a powerful Firelord.

Together, they could have been unstoppable, and her father would finally have had the favor of Grandfather Azulon.

Zuko needed her, just like she would need Zuko one day. She couldn't imagine when or why she would need Zuko-but she knew that it was true. Maybe she needed him even now, needed him and what they were doing here together to show their mother that she was not the monster Ursa thought her to be. She looked at Zuko, who was staring at the sky. She was a good sister. She was doing a good thing, and eventually both her parents would see that. But it started with the two of them, working together, in unison.

When Father did take the throne from Iroh, she would be at his left hand, Zuko at his right, and their mother would smile again. They would be a strong family, and one day, one of his children would be Firelord. Either Zuko would prove himself worthy of the right, or it would go to Azula, and she would have Zuko beside her, her trusted brother and advisor, who would, of course, understand that it was better this way. No matter what would happen though, they would be together, and they would be stronger for it. But that chance was gone for her father and her uncle. They were too late because they would never change.

"What are you thinking about?" Zuko said, half-mumbling as if he were half-asleep.

"Family."

Zuko propped himself up on one fist. "I miss Uncle Iroh."

Azula rolled over on her side so that she was facing Zuko, her fist supporting her head, her elbow digging into the grass. They were close to each other. "Why?"

"I miss his laugh. He laughed and smiled so much. And I miss his tea."

"Laughing and smiling doesn't do anything but make your face look funny," Azula said. "It will give you wrinkles."

"You should smile more, Azula," Zuko said. "Not your nasty smirk, the one that makes people wet their pants. The smile where you're actually happy about something. Then you wouldn't be so scary."

"I'll keep that in mind," Azula said drily. "But remember that when people don't fear you, they'll hurt you."

"Or they'll love you."

Azula scoffed. "Like Grandfather Azulon loves Father? A smile one day, fire the next."

"What are you talking about?" He sat up a little straighter and she mirrored him. "Of course Grandfather loves Father. That's like saying Dad doesn't love us. Well, you, anyway," he added softly.

Azula let herself fall until she was flat in the grass. She draped her arm across her eyes. "You really don't know anything, Zuko." But she knew their father would love them again when he got what he wanted, what he needed. Iroh was not a good brother because he should have given it to him, but eventually he would be out of the picture. Their father would be weaker without someone like Iroh on his side, but it wouldn't matter because he would have his own family at his side. She would make sure of it.

It wouldn't be like this with Zuko and her, she decided. It would be different.

They would be different.


	26. Tales on the Road to Ba Sing Se

**MAI**

Traveling to Ba Sing Se was tortuous. Mai would have taken the boredom of staying with her family at the Fire Nation capital after the first day. At least they had had the comforts of their status: the shoulder born palanquins, the deference of the residents, hot water scented with cinnamon and spices, and soothing lotions smelling lightly of mango.

Mai rolled her shoulders until her neck popped, wishing that she could loosen the knots clustered tightly against the base of her spine. They kept her awake. Most nights, she could only barely sleep. Instead, she looked up at the night sky, counting the stars in groups of three or five or seven depending on her mood. She missed her knives the most in these hours. Her hands empty and useless without something to occupy them.

Suki was awake more often than not too. Mai could hear her tossing and turning, and sometimes she would rise to her feet and stare back westwards, and Mai figured that Kyoshi Island was somewhere over there, and that she was just as weary of traveling as Mai was, that she missed home as much as Mai, that she missed her siblings as much as Mai. Mai thought of Tom-Tom frequently. She thought of how there had been a real possibility that she would have never seen him again if his kidnappers had been anyone else but the Avatar and his gang. Of course Aang had returned him to his family, and she wondered if he had done it because his own family had been so ruthlessly taken from him. She turned to find Azula a lumpy shadow in the darkness, and she wondered if Azula was the only one who could sleep on nights like these.

They had fallen into a rhythm now, and it wasn't like it was when they had first started, sniping at each other and complaining about how it didn't have to be this way. Sometimes, the girls would drift wide of each other, but they never lost sight of each other. There was still the chance that Azula might wander off, after all. That was fine with Mai. She missed being alone, and she tried to remember the last time she had not been surrounded by people. It was exhausting. They traveled mostly in silence, though sometimes Ty Lee would sing, and her voice was good, and so no one asked that she stop. When Ty Lee sang, they always seemed to drift back towards one another. Even Mai found herself angling closer, even though Ty Lee sang those silly little love songs, like the one about how it was a long, long way to Ba Sing Se, but the girls in the city they look so pretty, and they kiss so sweet that they really had to meet the girls of Ba Sing Se. That was Ty Lee's favorite. She sang it all the time.

Sometimes Mai even found herself falling in step to the rhythm of the music. It was nice, and it was stupid, but it was also something, and so Mai hovered close listening and thinking of Zuko as Ty Lee sadly sang about four seasons for love. Sometimes Suki taught her songs she had learned, and they would sing together, in harmony. And Mai hated that because it reminded her that Ty Lee was a Kyoshi Warrior now and, when this was done, she would go to that island in the Earth Kingdom, and who knew when she would return or if she would return.

Mai simmered as she glared at Suki, and she wondered again why she had accepted Ty Lee when the three of them had wronged them in a way that someone didn't just get over. Mai wasn't some stupid girl—she had heard Suki mention it over and over to Azula, all the while making sure to keep her glance away from Ty Lee. And maybe Suki was able to rationalize that since Azula was their leader then it was all Azula's fault, but nothing was that neat, nothing was that simple, and so Mai glared at Ty Lee and Suki both as she watched them walk together or watched them spar or watched Ty Lee flutter her hands like fans to cool the heat of the day from her face.

"It's terrible isn't it?" Azula said to her one day.

Mai started, not sure how she could have let her guard down enough no to notice Azula standing quietly beside her. Suki and Ty Lee were sparring, and Mai had been watching them, thinking of their history, and vaguely wishing she still had her knives. Azula's hands were clenched in fists beside her thighs, and her eyes were fixed on the way that Ty Lee's braid twisted in the air. They smoldered, and Mai had to remind herself again that Azula had lost her bending, that she couldn't do anything but glare like she had when she realized that Mai had betrayed her.

A shadow of guilt pained her and Mai jerked her eyes away.

"The heat is terrible, I mean," Azula said. "A princess must always be precise in her speech." She struck her palm with her hand as she stared at Ty Lee and Suki.

Mai looked at Azula out of the corner of her eye. She had loosened her hands, her wrists limp as she shielded her gaze from the glare of the sun.

"Kyoshi Island is on the way home from Ba Sing Se," Azula said. "Ty Lee will probably not even come back with us to the Fire Nation palace."

Mai frowned.

"Yes, Mai. I believe that Ba Sing Se will be our last stop," Azula said, her voice even. "I could be wrong, of course. I have been known to miscalculate."

Their eyes met, by accident, and it was as if Mai was back at the Boiling Rock. And then Azula smiled and laughed. Mai's stomach soured as she leaned back against the grass, trying to stay in the patch of shade from the shrubbery that grew smaller and smaller as the sun rose higher and higher.

"I doubt I'm wrong about this though. Ba Sing Se will be the last stop in our quest to find my mother, unless I am not entirely mistaken about the answers I'll find there. But I'm not sure what Iroh will say when I ask him my questions." The false levity drained from Azula's voice, and Mai's skin pricked with goosebumps.

"What about your bending?" Mai asked before she had even realized the question filled her mouth. Her eyes widened, frustrated that she had engaged with Azula at all. She didn't care, she absolutely, resolutely, did not care what had happened to Azula's bending. The only thing that mattered was that she never get it back.

Azula scoffed. "My bending? That's so sweet of you to care, but you really shouldn't concern yourself. After all, you do just fine without it, so why shouldn't I?"

It nettled, and Mai hated that it nettled, hated how Azula said it as if she had never thought nonbenders were weak, as if she had never once surrounded herself with nonbenders so she could have an ego boost whenever she wanted, that she could look at them and say they're good, but they'll never be good like me.

Azula smiled sweetly. "But enough about me. I know that when we do return home, whether it's from Ba Sing Se or somewhere else, that Ty Lee will not join us back to the palace. She'll stay on Kyoshi Island, with Suki, and then it'll just be us two. But don't worry, Mai, eventually she'll get bored as she always does, and she'll flit right back to you, unless another shiny new friendship distracts her." Azula patted Mai's shoulder stiffly and awkwardly.

"Leave me alone," Mai said. "I actually want to look forward to returning home."

Azula rose to her feet and took three giant steps backward. "I know that this might not be of concern to you, but I discovered a lovely hot spring just a mile or so down the road. Perhaps you would like to enjoy it since you're always complaining about how you'd like a hot bath."

Mai wondered how no one had noticed that Azula had wandered off, and wondered if it had been when she was too busy staring at Ty Lee and Suki and resenting how Ty Lee had joined the Kyoshi Warriors and how Suki had just accepted her except not really because no one would do that. Suki remembered. Suki was still angry about it. There she was again, trapping herself in just thinking the same thing over and over while Azula was doing who knew what. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

"It wouldn't be like the spas at the capital but the water was truly lovely," Azula said. "Perhaps you should indulge yourself for once, Mai." Her face wrinkled in something vaguely like scorn. "You're hardly looking your best."

Then she turned her back on Mai and walked back to the camp they had set up, crouching in front of the pile of wood they had gathered and holding her hand in front of it, as if she could will herself to set it aflame. Her hair fell free down her back, caught in the breeze like bird wings in flight. Mai hated that she still thought Azula beautiful, hated how her voice echoed in her ears and mind and bones long after she had finally fallen silent. Hated how her smile curved like the moon when it had reached its crescent.

Hated that, even though she knew she shouldn't, she found herself walking in the direction that Azula had gestured, hated that after about a mile of walking she heard the bubbling water, and hated how she stood at the brink of the hot spring, the steam coiling towards her, and hated how all she could think about in that instant was stripping out of her clothes and lowering herself into the boiling waters, letting it take the weary toil of the journey from her.

She soaked limply in the water, her eyes closed against the sinking sun.

She couldn't change what would happen after they were finished with their quest, she couldn't change what would happen with Azula, or where Ty Lee would go at the end of everything, but she at least could try to enjoy this.

Mai sighed and sank deeper into the water.

 **TY LEE**

Ty Lee loved sparring with Suki. She was a skilled warrior, and it took skill to spar just as it took skill to survive a real fight. Suki never hit too hard, and she never hit too softly. She always gave just enough, and Ty Lee was able to respond accordingly.

It wasn't like with Azula, who would push her down when they were supposedly done, and it wasn't like with Mai who rolled her eyes and never gave enough. Mai was someone whose eyes only lit up when the fight and the struggle were real.

So Ty Lee enjoyed sparring with Suki, who taught her new styles of combat, and Ty Lee could actually return the favor. After they had finished their session, bowing to each other with flushed faces and smiles, Ty Lee went to sit with Azula, who seemed absorbed by the sight of the pile of wood in front of her.

Ty Lee hesitated, caught between sitting beside her or finding her own spot. Shrugging, she flung herself to the ground opposite Azula, and breathed in deeply as she felt her heart beat begin to slow. "Where's Mai?" she asked.

"Taking a bath," Azula said. "There's a hot spring just over there." She pointed, and Ty Lee was tempted to crane her head up and look in that general direction, but she was too tired, too satisfied, and so she just smiled again. "You like sparring with Suki," Azula said.

Ty Lee stretched. "Of course, I do."

There was the sound of crumpling grass, and Azula's head blocked the pink glow of the setting sun as she looked down at her. Her hair was lit strangely and beautifully by the light. After a few moments, Azula settled beside her cross legged on the grass, pulling up handfuls of it to sprinkle over Ty Lee's bare midriff, like she was bored.

Ty Lee pushed at her hands, weakly, and laughed. "Oh don't, Azula, it tickles." She brushed the grass from her stomach, and waited for Azula to keep doing it, but she didn't. Turning her head, she saw that Azula was watching her. Her wrists were braced against the hollows of her knees. There was a downturn set to her mouth, and she was staring at a space that wasn't quite Ty Lee. "What's wrong, Azula?"

Azula straightened, shaking her head so that her hair flung out around her. The jagged cut of her bangs was beginning to grow out, and when her hair was in motion, it was impossible to spot the imperfection. An ache, similar to the homesick itch that would sometimes keep Ty Lee awake, burrowed itself in her heart, and Ty Lee's eyes stung.

"Nothing is wrong, Ty Lee," Azula said, smiling indulgently at her. "Why would anything be wrong?" Her smile became fixed in that strange way where it was like Azula was not even breathing.

"You just seem—" Ty Lee closed her eyes as she tried to find the right words. "You just seem down. Like you're sad or like you're missing someone."

Azula laughed that strange laugh that made Ty Lee uncomfortable. "Who could I possibly be missing? My thieving brother, my treacherous uncle, my father?" But then her face became serious, suddenly, and Ty Lee wondered again how Azula could switch so neatly and completely between emotions. "But I am concerned about something, Ty Lee. I'm concerned about you."

Something warm and fuzzy grew in the cavity of Ty Lee's chest, and she raised herself on one elbow as she looked at Azula's face. "But why are you concerned about me? I'm fine!"

Azula gestured towards Suki as if that explained everything.

The feeling that had made her feel so safe disappeared instantly, and Ty Lee felt a flash of irritation as she scrambled into a sitting position. The grass itched at her bare legs. "What are you talking about?"

Azula shrugged. "I've just been trying to figure out why she even came. Yes, it's because you're her fellow Kyoshi Warrior, but then I wonder why she even let you join them anyway. We're the enemy, and we humiliated them."

She said it like Ty Lee was a child who barely knew anything about war, despite the fact she had been practically on the front lines of the last one. "Excuse me?" Ty Lee asked.

"I'm just saying it's strange. I know I'm not the only one who thinks so," Azula said, tapping her chin. "Even Sokka thought you were the enemy, didn't he? At least that's what I heard since I wasn't actually invited to Zuko's coronation."

Ty Lee felt her face twisting in that distinctly unpleasant way that felt like it would wrinkle her face permanently. "Well, I'm not the enemy. I'm her friend. And she's here for me. She told me so. She told me she was concerned about me specifically because you're such a terrible friend!" Ty Lee jabbed her own chest with her finger, and it hurt, dully somewhere in the knuckle but she didn't care. She was out of breath, and dizzy because of what she had said, and she braced herself for Azula's anger.

It never came. Azula only sighed as she stared up at Ty Lee. "You're proving my point for me. You haven't forgiven me for what I've done, but we did something far worse to Suki and her warriors. When has anyone so completely forgiven another person who has wronged them so terribly? It's a terrible thing when you can't trust the people closest to you, and you already betrayed them. No matter what Suki says, you're not just friends, and you're not just a Kyoshi Warrior. Why would you join them when you'll never be one of them no matter how much you hide your face with that ridiculous paint?"

Ty Lee rose to her feet and stamped them. The pieces of grass that Azula had sprinkled from her rose in little puffs under her toes. "You sound just like Mai! Just because you are both bitter old crones who don't know how to forgive doesn't mean that everybody else is! We've put that stuff behind us, we're better than that!" Ty Lee fretted with her hands, and thought back to their time at the prison. Suki hadn't been with them, of course, but Ty Lee had taught the girls how to protect themselves from people like Ty Lee and Mai. It had been a give and take. Ty Lee had given them something important, and she had received something just as important in return. But Suki hadn't been there. It had just been the other Kyoshi Warriors who had sworn that Ty Lee was different now, that being in prison had changed her for the better, and Suki had paused for a terrible moment before quietly welcoming her into their little group.

What had she been thinking in that pause?

Ty Lee looked quickly to Azula, who had leaned back slightly in the grass, her arms stretched behind her, as her eyes closed. Tufts of grass sprouted between the narrow spaces of her fingers, and Ty Lee thought about her holding something gentle, like a flower, and then she remembered that she was angry with Azula because she was back at her old games, even though they had already traveled so many miles that Ty Lee was sure they had been left behind with the rest of their baggage that had had been washed overboard.

"I'm not trying to upset you, I'm just trying to explain this to you. Suki doesn't care what happens to us-it's not a lie, she said so herself. She cares about her home, about her precious Earth Kingdom. She's afraid of us, afraid that we'll do something together that will hurt her all over again. She's not here to just babysit me, Ty Lee, but to make sure that we don't do something terrible together. People keep saying that they're afraid I'll do this or I'll do that, but face it, Ty Lee, I didn't do any of those things alone. Some people forget about that, but Suki hasn't. And when this is over, the three of us will be broken up permanently when you go to Kyoshi Island. Which is what Suki wants more than anything. It was a strategic move on her part, not an emotional one." Azula sighed. "You're always so naive, always so willing to see the good in people, Ty Lee. I'm just trying to protect you."

"Well, I don't need you to protect me," Ty Lee said. "You can keep your nasty thoughts to yourself. No wonder your aura is so grungy and terrible!"

"Don't let Mai hear you say that," Azula said as Ty Lee stormed back towards Suki. "She'd hate to be compared to me in any possible way."

Ty Lee ignored her, instead grinding her teeth and yelping when she accidentally bit the insides of her mouth. Of course Azula would say something like this. That was the person who Azula was. She would say anything to break up a friendship that might threaten what they had once had, but Mai had said the same thing. And Mai wasn't like Azula. She didn't have any ulterior motives.

Ty Lee stopped, staring at Suki who was still stretching, as if she didn't want to join them, as if she really didn't want to come back to their little group, like she was just finding ways to eat up the time so there wasn't much of it left to be spent just being together, even if they had nothing to say.

"We're friends, right?" Ty Lee said, as she neared Suki.

Suki glanced up. Her hair was a little longer, but still on the short side. Her eyes were soft and friendly, and Ty Lee hated, suddenly, how she had accused her. This was something that Azula did, making her doubt everything about the people around her, about herself.

Classic Azula. And she had fallen for it, again, just like Mai had warned she would if she went on this trip.

"Of course we're friends," Suki said. "You're a Kyoshi Warrior, and so am I."

Ty Lee nodded, as if that should settle it, but it didn't. Instead, she thought about the day when they had disembarked from the merchant vessel, when Suki had stopped Azula from stealing the ostrich horse, and how Suki had really taken charge in that moment so that she could show them the scar.

Of course, that was always how it was going to be. Azula couldn't lead them. Who knew what ruin she would lead them to, and Ty Lee didn't want Azula to be her leader, not anymore. They were equals now, even if she was still a fancy princess. But Suki called all the shots except where they went next. Suki talked to them like she expected them to just try to take over the Earth Kingdom all over again, warning them as she made an example out of Azula.

And maybe it was fair for Suki to think that. Maybe it was fair for Suki to still be angry. But Ty Lee didn't know what to do with that. Saying she never wanted to have taken over Ba Sing Se or that it hadn't been her idea rang hollow and pathetic.

"What's the matter, Ty Lee?"

Ty Lee dropped to the ground, her knees against her chest. "I'm confused. Mai and Azula keep telling me that I don't belong with you. They keep saying that I'm not really a Kyoshi Warrior because of what passed between us. And Azula saying it is of course, typical, because that's who she is, but Mai said it too."

"When did Mai say it?"

Ty Lee flushed, hating herself. "A bit ago. Before we left." It had bothered her when Mai had said it, but it had bothered her more when Azula had said it, and that bothered her even more, and being bothered meant that her aura couldn't be pink.

"When I say we're friends, Ty Lee, it means that I don't see you as an enemy. But, let's be honest. I don't know you that well. I wasn't in prison with you, and I only really know you as Azula's friend, one of the trio that ambushed us and then dressed in our uniforms to gain access to Ba Sing Se."

Ty Lee looked at the grass between her toes and winced.

"I came because you are part of the Kyoshi Warriors, but I also came to keep an eye on the three of you. Do you really think that Zuko would have let the three of you go if I hadn't come along?"

Ty Lee looked up at her, and was surprised to see that Suki's eyes were soft. "You don't need to be afraid of us. You don't need to be afraid of me."

"And I'm not," Suki said. "But I'm the leader of the Kyoshi Warriors for a reason. I don't think that you would purposely take over Ba Sing Se again, and I don't think that you're secretly working for Ozai or something ridiculous like that. But I know that the Kyoshi Warriors have been hurt by you, and I know that the Earth Kingdom has been hurt by the Fire Nation. I don't know what that means for us. I hope you can understand because I barely understand myself. I just know that I feel so conflicted and that I don't know the right words. I don't even know if there are right words. I only know that I don't have a bond or a shared experience with you, and if you're with the Kyoshi Warriors, then I have to have that. I was hoping this trip would be that shared experience."

Ty Lee lowered her eyes again. "Will this always be between us?" Her voice sounded too small and too quiet, and she wished she did not sound so sad.

"I don't know," Suki said. "It will be easier when this is all over. When we're back on Kyoshi Island. We can think, and we can breathe. But Kyoshi Island is our home, and your home is in the Fire Nation. And there's nothing wrong with that, but I miss my home. Don't you think that you'll miss yours? Don't you think that you'll want to come back to it sooner rather than later?"

Ty Lee frowned. She had always thought that it would be easy to come and see Mai and Azula again whenever she wanted. But that wasn't true. They had barely managed one journey between the Earth Kingdom and the Fire Nation, how could she so blithely think she could see them whenever she wanted as if she had a flying bison like the Avatar? "I don't know," she said.

Suki sat down with her. "You don't need to know right now. We're all still just trying to figure out this whole thing together. Things are confusing, but one day, they won't be."

Ty Lee knew she shouldn't be surprised. She knew she shouldn't be hurt.

But for some reason she was. And for some reason, she didn't want to get up to leave, and so she didn't, and they sat together in silence until the sun was down and the stars had come out.

 **AZULA**

"The cave of two lovers?" Azula asked. Debris was piled at the entrance, but someone had moved part of it away, but not all of it, leaving just enough space for a person to scramble through. It was as if they had tried to do the whole job but had tired and given up. Why wouldn't they just finish it? And, as Azula stood on her tip toes, peering through the debris into the tunnel, she saw it was dark, a pitch blackness that pooled her vision and made her skin crawl, as her fingers whispered together, as she imagined the pillars of blue flame she once could have created to drive the darkness away. She stepped back and looked again at the barricaded entrance. There were the remnants of sculptures in the rubble. A stone eye peered at her in the light, like it knew she was helpless against the dark.

Suki nodded. "It's a nice little shortcut. There are so many Earth Kingdom stories about this cave." She put her palm against the rock and smiled.

"It sounds silly," Mai said. She hung back, her arms folded across her chest. "The cave of two lovers? Why would they meet in such a place?"

Suki looked back over her shoulder. "They didn't. They made this labyrinth to hide their love so they could be together."

"I think it's romantic!" Ty Lee held her hands clasped over her chest. "The cave of two lovers! It has such a lovely ring to it, as if anything could happen!"

"We're going to need a torch," Azula said, making sure to keep her voice cool, casual. She didn't care they needed a torch. A torch was a natural thing to need.

Suki shook her head. "We won't need that. We don't need fire to light the way for us."

Irritation prickled Azula's skin as she planted her feet and balled her hands into fists against the spurs of her hips. "I refuse to walk into the darkness like a fool!" She forced herself to keep calm. It didn't matter if the cave reminded her of everything that she had lost. Suki didn't need to know that. None of them needed to know that.

Mai sighed. "I can't believe I'm about to say this, but I agree with Azula. I'm not going in there without a light."

Suki looked at them for a moment, before her head tipped back and she laughed. Her voice rang against the rocks, and shivered the air around them. And then she was smiling at them, broadly, without malice, as she asked, "Are the strongest girls of the Fire Nation scared of the dark?"

"I wouldn't say scared," Ty Lee said, "more like, nervous or maybe uncertain or maybe even a tiny bit reluctant?"

"It's sensible to want a light," Mai said.

Azula nodded. "It's not a crazy thing to ask for. We have things to do, things which don't include getting lost in the dark."

Suki held out her hands, as if they needed to be placated. "Just because we won't be bringing our own light doesn't mean there won't be any light at all." She stepped towards Azula and Azula neatly stepped out of her way. "The cave and its labyrinth of tunnels teaches us something important: that love is brightest in the dark. Trust me, we won't need a light."

"Why?" Azula asked. "Because we love each other so much?"

Ty Lee melted as she clasped her hands again, eyes shining as she ignored Azula. "Oh, what a beautiful thing to say!"

Mai rolled her eyes. "It's a metaphor, Ty Lee. Love isn't really brightest in the dark. Lucky for us. It means something else, and Suki knows what it really means."

Suki smiled. "I might."

"Mai is right," Azula said, avoiding Ty Lee's gaze. "This is ridiculous."

"Maybe it won't be as bad as you think. But if you want to go the long way around, we can certainly do that though I think not taking advantage of my expertise would be a mistake." Suki looked at Azula and the other girls.

Azula glared at the half-cleared entrance through the tunnel and then back at Suki. She thought they were scared, well she was wrong. And besides they were in a hurry. "We'll go through your stupid tunnel," Azula said.

"And I trust you," Ty Lee said, smiling at Suki in a way that made Azula roll her eyes.

"I'm so excited," Mai added in that flat voice of hers.

Suki smiled at them. "Great! I promise that you will not be lost wandering in the dark, and that we will be able to find our way through to the other side." She gripped the rocks and hauled herself over its ledge as she crawled over the debris. "It's a bit of a drop at the bottom, so be careful," she called out as the Fire Nation girls stared at each other, still on the other side.

Ty Lee shrugged and followed Suki.

Mai and Azula lingered at the entrance, both their arms folded across their chests, both glowering at each other.

"After you," Mai said dully.

Beyond them, Ty Lee was laughing delightedly. "Oh, Suki, you were right! C'mon Mai, c'mon Azula, come and see! It's so beautiful!"

Azula turned and gripped the rocks. Her hands were slippery and slick with sweat, and for a moment she was afraid she was going to fall, that Mai might catch her, that Mai would fall to the ground under Azula's weight, and that they would lie stunned in each other's arms as they struggled for breath.

The image was hateful, and Azula scrambled over the debris as quickly as she could. The darkness pooled thickly and, even though Suki had warned them about the sudden drop, it came upon her suddenly as a rock slipped loose under her weight, sending her tumbling.

Her stomach lurched in that queasy free-fall way, and Azula tucked herself as Ty Lee had shown her, when they were young, and she landed rolling on her shoulder, vaulting to her feet like she had meant to do that, like she hadn't slipped or fallen, like everything was fine.

Ty Lee gripped her hands, and pointed towards the ceiling. "Look! Look!"

Luminescent rocks glowed from the ceiling of the tunnel. In their sickly light, Azula could see Suki standing underneath them, one wrist braced against her hip, the other hanging relaxed against her thigh. She was smiling in that I-told-you-so way.

"Isn't it beautiful?" Ty Lee gasped as Mai joined them like a tall shadow.

"It's a glowing rock," Mai said.

"We follow them, and they'll lead us to the other side," Suki said as she took off down the path.

Because Ty Lee asked, Suki told them the story of Oma and Shu, those star-crossed lovers who dared to love even when their villages were at war. Traitors, Azula thought dully as she listened.

The man died in the war, of course, and Oma ended the war with her earthbending, and then they built Omashu and everything was fine after that because that was the way of things in these types of stories. There was never that lingering feeling of unease, twisting through the center of their being like steaming tea, there wasn't wordless resentment that was hidden away until there was no space to hide it anymore.

Azula's hands clenched into fists as they followed the light of the green rocks. It led them to a round hallway, and they crept through it and saw the tomb of the two lovers beneath them. Azula moved forward to see the painted mural of the story that Suki had already told them. Whoever had depicted the story had loved them, she realized, as she bent down and blew the dust away so that the pigments of the paint became a little brighter, a little realer.

"Love is brightest in the dark," Ty Lee said. Azula stood straight and saw Ty Lee standing in front of a large carving of two figures kissing. Her braid was long, and her hand hovered over the glistening stone, as if she wanted to touch but couldn't or wouldn't.

"I always thought about this place on Kyoshi Island," Suki said, "but I never thought I'd see it. Earthbending was learned from love, and I would think about that when I slept under the statue of Avatar Kyoshi as a child, wondering who she had loved."

"You're not an earthbender," Azula said. "Why does it matter?"

Suki shrugged as she turned away from the image. "I don't know. I just know it does."

Azula went to Ty Lee, intending to tell her that they needed to go, that they had already lingered too long and every second wasted was that much longer before they reached Ba Sing Se. But she hadn't realized just how large the engraving was, and now that she was up close, she found herself staring at them too.

It made her uncomfortable, it made her feel trapped to see those two figures so close together. She wondered if her mother and father had ever been so close, and could not remember them without the table and the tea between them.

Of course, she had seen Mai and Zuko this close, had interrupted them because they shouldn't be together, because Mai shouldn't prefer Zuko's company to hers, and Azula squeezed her eyes shut as she remembered kissing Chan before he had left her on the balcony.

It had been quick, it hadn't meant anything, she saw that now even though she had tried to make it into something it wasn't, into something that mattered before he had left her so quickly behind.

She glared again at the depiction of Oma and Shu. How could they be so close? Their eyes were shut, as if they trusted each other not to do anything when they weren't looking. How stupid could they be? Something like panic, an awareness of how deep they were underground, of how close she was to the girls around her, of the proximity and weight of the caverns, grew in her as a cold sweat broke against her skin.

The space between her and Ty Lee was a physical weight, and Azula knew it would break her to her knees, because she wasn't strong enough to bear it.

Ty Lee reached through the scant distance between them as if it was nothing, and held Azula's hand. The touch turned Azula so that they faced each other, their own profiles in parallel with the engraving of Oma and Shu.

"They were probably enemies once," Ty Lee said, her voice soft, "and they learned to love each other."

She looked at Azula like it meant something between them, and Azula remembered Ember Island, and she remembered Zuko teasing her, and she remembered how badly she had wanted Ty Lee to be there with her, and then Ty Lee had made her choice, just like Mai, just like Zuko, just like Ursa, just like Ozai.

Ty Lee was waiting for her. Normally she had so much to say. Why was she letting the silence stretch into another labyrinth between them?

Azula put on her smile. "It's just a story meant to amuse little children." She slipped her hands from Ty Lee and went towards the other end of the tomb, where there was an open door leading through the mountains. The green light lit the way like sickly reminders that even when she was through the tunnels, there was still the road to Ba Sing Se, the task of finding her mother, of finding her bending—but there was no finding things that were gone or filling the holes they left behind.

"Alright, Azula," Ty Lee said, softly. "We're right behind you."

They left the cave of two lovers, and the sun was not as high as Azula thought it would be. They had not been in the cave for as long as she had thought, and she wondered why, when had that happened because she was excellent at counting the passing of the hours. But she had lost her sense of it, and she stared at the nub of shadow her body cast against the ground as she counted her steps and tracked the passage of the sun.

"Are you alright, Azula?" Ty Lee asked.

"I'm fine," Azula said, quickly. "Everything is fine. I just want to reach Ba Sing Se as quickly as possible."

Ty Lee nodded and they walked until it was dark and when it was dark, Azula could not sleep as she stared into the sky and identified the long lists of constellations she had learned as a child until the sun rose on the horizon, washing the stars away in a haze of pink as Ty Lee leaned over her, and wished her a good morning with her brightest smile, just like she always did.


	27. Interlude: Fear is the Only Way

The day that Azula and Zuko would perform for their father dawned cold and grey, and it was hard to feel the sun on their skin as they waited for it to rise. The ocean was a cold slick grey, and the wind made her shiver. Still, Azula didn't try to assure him that everything would be fine when she saw his face drawn tight with a worry, while a nervous sweat stuck to his skin in a vaguely satisfying way. Besides, even if she had been inclined to reassure him, there really wouldn't be anything to say.

She had taught him, after all. It was not the way of things for the student to overcome the master, especially over the course of a mere month. There was no way he was better than she—but that still didn't mean that he hadn't improved a lot, because he had. The point was to impress that upon their father, to demonstrate that their family was strong, and that Zuko would not embarrass him as a prince, as his heir, and as his son.

It wasn't like they were going to fight an Agni Kai because Zuko would truly lose if that were the case. She smiled at him as she watched him go through the forms she'd taught him, the most basic sets for him to establish his root, not just physically but emotionally as well.

Maybe the day would come for them to fight an Agni Kai, but when that time came, she would defeat him. But today was not that day and, for the moment, she could wait. If everything turned out as she had planned, the day would never come-but she would prepare for it, just in case.

They bowed to each other after they finished their sets, and he said, "Thank you, Azula. I couldn't have done this without you."

"You're right—you couldn't," Azula said, smiling. "But don't worry about that now. Let's go to the beach where they'll be waiting."

Together, they ran down the small knoll that rose behind their house. The path was still wet with morning dew, and they went carefully. Eventually, the path turned from stony rock to sand. The beach that surrounded their house was secluded, and though there were times that people would find their way on the spit of sand that Azula considered theirs, they tended to prefer the more open beaches that were more welcoming for swimmers and sun bathers. Azula liked that just fine.

Their parents were already waiting for them, seated in chairs that Li and Lo had brought from the house. They stood behind them, their grey hair tied up in the same way, their hands folded in the same way, their eyes meeting furtively as they only barely turned their heads. Azula wondered what they were thinking, then decided she didn't care.

Father's eyes were on a piece of parchment, and Mom's gaze was unfocused, eyes half closed, while her hands were clenched around the ornately carved wood of her chair. It was as if she were bracing for something, for something terrible at that, and Azula nearly laughed, except she couldn't because Father didn't even look excited-neither of them did. This was her's and Zuko's moment. They had worked hard for this, and it looked like their parents didn't even care.

"Wait," she hissed, as she caught a glimpse of Zuko's crooked tunic. She straightened it for him, swiped the bit of sand that clung to the knees of his breeches, and then she did the same to her own clothes. She smoothed her hair and made sure it was perfect.

A princess always looked her best.

She looked at Zuko, and his face was already crumbling, doubt fracturing his face as he looked back at her. It was now or never. He had to realize his potential sometime. He had to become the prince he was always supposed to be some day.

"Shall we begin?" Azula asked, her voice ringing clearly. It made her sound older than she actually was. Good.

"What will you show us?" Mom said, her eyes opening fully to look at them as she smiled.

"We'll perform the most basic sets," Azula said, pacing in a circle around her brother. Her footsteps left a damp, sunken ring around him. "Then we'll work our way up through the more complex forms." She paused, her hand relaxed as her hand gestured, almost lazily, towards her parents. "I'm ahead of my class and now, thanks to my instruction, Zuko is too. Together," she said as orange flame hovered in tight balls over her hand, "we'll put on such a show, you'll be blinded by the brightness of our fire, your skin will be scorched from the heat. It will be like the time the fire ravaged the forests in the southern islands, only this time, we'll be in control, and then at the end of it all, Zuko and I will determine who really is the better firebender." Her eyes closed partly, like the cats that waited for the mice to show as they lounged in the summer sun, feigning sleep.

"Hmm," Father said, rolling his parchment as he finally gave them his attention. "This sounds like showmanship, not real firebending."

Azula flushed just as Mom said, softly, "Ozai—"

Zuko turned a shade paler.

"As I told you," Father said, "my father, Firelord Azulon, for whom you are named, young Azula, demanded that Iroh and I practice against each other instead of with each other. That way we could more easily learn to identify our weaknesses while providing good sport for us and those who watched. Don't you agree that that sounds more interesting, Azula, than this spectacle you've dreamed up?"

Mom spoke before Azula could answer. "Ozai, the children should do what they like. This will be just as engaging. I love watching them whatever they do-don't you?"

Father's lips grew thin as he shot a look at Mom, a look that made her put her hand over wrists, clutching at the folds of her robe. "And what use is knowledge without application?"

"There's no need to argue," Azula said, interjecting. "Of course, Zuko and I are going to fight after we show you how well we've come on our sets. We've learned so much. We can't possibly show you everything in one fight." Their father had not watched them bend for an age, and as far as Azula was concerned, she would keep him here for as long as she could. Zuko had agreed to her plan, just as she had expected him to. He wasn't looking forward to fighting her at all, even though Azula had promised to let him win. He had even thought that their plan to show off their routines would make their father forget about his decision that they fight each other, but Azula had known that he would not forget. And she had been right, as she was always right.

"I do not have time to watch you for hours," Ozai said, yawning. "Fight each other now, and let me see what you have learned."

"As you wish, Father," Azula said as she bowed to him if only to hide her glare.

She turned back to Zuko, smiling. They had not choreographed their fight because they had been afraid their father would realize it wasn't real. They had only agreed that Azula would lose to Zuko. "Scared, Zuko?" Azula called.

"You wish," he hurled back.

Part of the plan, of course.

They bowed, and settled in their offensive positions. Father had returned to his scroll, and Mom leaned anxiously forward, as if she was actually afraid something terrible would happen to Zuko.

Zuko was in a good stance, just the way she had taught him. Azula could see his measured breathing, the way his chest rose and fell, powering the fire in his belly. His eyes were soft, rooted on her face. He would be fine if he remembered to be the person he was supposed to be, the person who could beat her.

She realized, suddenly, that he finally trusted her to keep her promise to let him be better than her.

It was a strange feeling, but Azula shook it from her as Zuko started the match with a fireball that was barely hot. With a circular motion of her arms, she dispelled the flame easily. She returned the blow, her two fingers guiding her chi up and out of her, turning it into fire.

Zuko dodged it neatly, and tried to taunt her. "Is that all you have, Azula?"

Azula scoffed. He'd just dodged it. He hadn't touched it, hadn't used his bending against it, not like she had. Anybody could just dodge it, like Mai and Ty Lee. Father wasn't going to be impressed with a dodged fireball.

Their father glanced up and, when she saw, she shot out a complex series that finished with a kick. Zuko wouldn't be able to dodge them all, and he was forced to bend the flame—either to dispel it or to send it back towards her.

She avoided some of the fire he sent her way, but she allowed one to hit her, and she staggered under its force until she landed with a soft plop on her bottom. She flushed. She hadn't expected it to hit so hard. She hadn't expected her garments to smoke.

Her eyes swept the scene. She saw her mother leaning forward in her chair, her hands clasped like she was worried. She saw the minute shaking of her father's head as his eyes once more turned to the scroll in his lap. She saw the way that Zuko's muscles were beginning to ease their tension, as if he were about to drop out of his stance, out of his root, just because she was on the ground.

What an idiot. It was almost as if he wanted to go and help her, when instead he should be pressing his advantage.

She flung her feet out, body twisting in a circle, and a wave of flame orbited from her center. Zuko jumped back as she leaped forwards, forcing him to retreat as his root continued to break, until he lost his balance and fell backwards. He would have hit the ground if Azula had not gripped him by his garments, hauling him upright, flipping him so his back was to her front, her arm forcing his up and behind his back. "Come on, Zuko!" she hissed. "You need to do better than this." She pushed him then, and he staggered forward, rubbing his arm, as he glared at her.

Good. It would fuel his fire, make it hot and bright.

She smiled that curling smile, and advanced slowly.

He couldn't do anything to stop her, and fire jetted from her firsts and feet as she flared towards him. He fell backwards again, and this time she didn't try to catch him as he landed on the sand and rock.

As she advanced towards him, she wondered what Zuko was thinking, because what she had seen wasn't impressive at all. He didn't have a fighter's spirit in her, not like she did, but there was one thing that he could still do as he sat there like a useless lump of rock. "Firebending comes from the breath," she said to him, quietly, so that their father wouldn't hear. She waited, standing over him, shaking her head as fire flared from her hand, bracing herself as he finally realized what she wanted him to do. His feet plowed into her stomach, and she doubled over as her fire spluttered out.

While she gasped for breath, he climbed quickly to his feet, and for a moment, both their eyes slid towards their parents even though Azula knew she should keep her focus on Zuko—even though she also knew he probably would not press his new-found advantage.

Mom's head was shaking. She looked pale. Azula wondered why she didn't look happier. Zuko was winning.

Father put his parchment aside, and he stood to his feet. "Is that all you have for me?" he demanded. "From the way you spoke, you implied that you would be able to impress me!"

Azula looked at Zuko, willed him to understand, and he did. He renewed his assault, and she found herself truly losing ground as he punched hot bursts of fire from his fists. It was uncontrolled, wild, like his entire being was screaming. Azula struggled to dispel the flames, her body twisting as she dodged the ones she couldn't bend away from her. Pain twinged in her side as she pulled a muscle, but she ignored it. It didn't matter.

But their father was not satisfied. "Who am I supposed to be proud of? Zuko, who can barely bend?" Azula slid under an curving arc of flame Zuko sent towards her. Sweat streamed down her face and stung her eyes.

"Come on, Zuko," she whispered. "You have to show him you have more than this!"

Zuko redoubled his efforts. Azula's skin cracked rom the heat.

"Am I supposed to be proud of you, Azula? You won't finish this charade once and for all. You could have ended it before it even began. This is shameful. An embarrassment!"

Azula bit her lip. She had promised. She had to let Zuko win because it was the only way so that their father took what was his.

"Have you learned nothing?" she said, rapidly to Zuko, but not loud enough that their parents might hear. "The only person who is proud of you is Mom, and you know she doesn't count. Why are you so weak, Zuko, why aren't you good at anything? Didn't you hear what he said? He's not proud of you, doesn't that make you angry?" She reached through flame that blistered her knuckles and pushed him hard against his chest. "You know what he says about you, that you were lucky to be born, as if he wishes you weren't his son! He was ready to abandon you, because he thought you couldn't bend! Are you going to prove himself to you so that he'll love you like he loves me, or are you going to sit there crying like a coward?"

Zuko screamed, and he pushed her back, his palms searing her clothes as they smoked into embers. Her hurled fire at her and she returned it flame for flame. She could smell her hair burn, and she smiled as she met him head on, and they fought and struggled. He struck her, and she blocked his blow so their arms locked, fire jetting from their fists. Zuko struggled to push her back, and she put up enough of a fight for it to look real. It wasn't hard. She was tired, and he was bigger than her.

They glanced back towards their parents. Their mother had risen to her feet, like she wanted to stop them but was too scared to, but their father was shaking his head in disgust, as he was already walking away from them, back to his house, back to his work, away from them.

"No!" Azula cried. She kicked Zuko back with a blast that made him cry out her name, and she redoubled her assault. "Fight me, fight me for real!" she hissed. "I can't do this alone—I need your help. You don't need to worry about hurting me, I can take care of myself."

Her fire rimmed with blue, heat scorched her hand and her face.

"Is that still the best you can do?" she mocked. "We'll be here all day unless you do something better. If you don't get better, one day Father is going to find a way to get rid of you, and I'll be an only child, and you'll be nobody, Zuzu!"

Zuko ran towards her, and she sent a blast of fire his way. At the last moment, he hunched his shoulders, and he drove his head into her belly. He was larger than her, heavier than her, and the blow sent her sailing backwards. She landed hard on her back, and that knocked the rest of the air out of her. She gasped for breath in the sand, slowly trying to roll over so she could climb to her feet. A low wall of fire, flames flickering orange and red, surrounded her, penning her so she would be unable to maneuver, and then Zuko stood above her, his hand pulsing with bright, hot flame as if to strike.

But he wouldn't strike, not even if she demanded he do it. There was something wrong with his face. He was flushed with excitement, with victory, but there was a reluctance in his eyes, as if he took no real joy from this.

Time enough to work on that later, she thought, as she nodded at him slightly. He'd finally managed it, finally started acting like a real firebender.

Father should be proud, she thought, as she acknowledged her defeat. The fire surrounding her burned to embers. When he tried to help her up, she glared at him, and he jerked his hand up to run through his hair while she scrambled to her feet by herself. Then they bowed to each other.

Mom was running towards them, and she hugged Zuko fiercely as she ran her hands through his hair, as she wiped the ash from his cheek with her thumbs.

But father was already gone. He had left and, panicked, Azula wondered when he had left. Had he left before or after Zuko had "beaten" her? It had almost been real at the end, she thought. It wasn't a complete lie. Anybody watching would have thought it was real.

"I'm so proud of you," his mother said. Her hands were heavy on Zuko's shoulders, and he was smiling. "I loved watching you." She looked towards Azula. "Azula-"

"Where'd Dad go?" Azula asked, scanning for him.

Ursa's face pinched and she said, "I don't know. Probably to his study. You look thirsty-let's go get some tea." She put her arm around Zuko's shoulders, and held out her other hand towards Azula.

Azula walked past her as they went back to the house. She pulled at her hair, which had become tangled during the fight. Where had he gone? When had he left? It hadn't worked. It was supposed to be different. Father was supposed to be lavishing praise on Zuko, and Mom was supposed to be comforting Azula because she had lost and she always praised and comforted Zuko when he lost. But she had gone to Zuko as she always did, no matter what happened apparently.

What was happening? Everything had been planned so perfectly, and it was still falling apart.

"I think we have some fresh mango. Do you think that would make a lovely treat after this morning?" Ursa asked. Zuko smiled, nodding earnestly. "Azula? Would you like some too?"

"I'm not hungry," Azula said. It wasn't fair. She had planned every step of this perfectly. It should have worked.

"Are you sure?" Ursa said. "You worked so hard this morning. It would be nice of you to join us, don't you think, Zuko?" She tucked him closer and smiled down at him.

Azula rolled her eyes, and said nothing. When Ursa and Zuko followed Li and Lo to the dining area, Azula slipped away from them. She found their father in his study. Peeking through the thin red curtains that separated the study from the rest of the house, she watched him work. He looked very focused. His worked seemed very important. She pushed through the cloth, her feet scuffing against the stone floor, and waited for him to notice her until she pretended to sneeze.

"Azula," he said without looking at her.

"You left before I could ask if you liked what you saw," Azula said. "Didn't Zuko do well? I think some of the sand may have even turned to glass. It certainly shined bright enough. Did you see how my fire was nearly blue?"

"What I saw was you losing to your brother."

It stung, but Azula rallied. "So you see he's improved. Doesn't that make you happy?" She smiled, though he didn't turn around to see it.

"I am happy when my children do not lie," her father said. "I know what I saw out there. I know you let Zuko win. I just don't understand why."

He finally faced her, and she saw the cold fire sparking in his eyes. A chill crept down the hollow of her spine. How could she explain to him without letting him know about all the things she saw and knew? If he knew, he would be embarrassed, angry. She folded her arms, and tried to speak casually. "I was just trying to be nice, Father. It's not as if we've been happy lately. There's nothing wrong with that, is there?" She twisted folds of curtain through her fingers.

"For a long time, I thought I had been cursed with one weak child." Her father turned away from her. "I did not realize that I was cursed with two."

The words struck her, and Azula could barely breathe. "I'm not like Zuko," she said, hotly.

"What would your grandfather say if he knew you had let Zuko win? It was a falsehood, and that he went along with it to buy my favor makes me even more disappointed in him, and in you. I have already given up on your brother. He will never be as strong as you. He will never be as good as you. Don't let him drag you down with him. Don't let mercy or pity or sympathy weaken you, stop you from becoming the person I know you can be. Someone who is strong, someone who will inspire fear in her enemies instead of mockery. Someone born to rule, like the Firelords before you. People will take advantage of kindness, so don't let them. Fear is the only way to be strong. And your brother should fear you, Azula. He should fear your skill, he should fear how he cannot measure up to the standards you have set. He should fear you—not look for you to help when he cannot even help himself."

Azula put her wrist to her eyes. She hated that she was about to cry. "But Father—"

He waved her away, and the flourish of his hand silenced her as surely as if he had ordered her to be silent. She ducked through the curtain swiftly, and it flapped at her knees. She ran as fast as she could throughout the house, but there was only Li and Lo, who called after her, who asked if she was alright, and what did they know, they didn't know anything, and she ran from them until she was alone.

She skidded to a stop outside. Zuko and his mother were on the beach, relaxing on a blanket. They cradled bowls of mango in their laps. He was showing her a shell he had found, and she was holding it in her hand like it was the most precious thing.

Grinding her teeth, she flung away so that she would not have to see them together. She ran along the paths that wound up the mountains, the volcanoes that had long since died, but ash still puffed beneath her feet. And when she reached the top, she fell to her knees, beat the earth with her fists, and sobbed as she screamed blue-hearted fire from her mouth.


	28. Tea at the Jasmine Dragon

It was a long journey to Ba Sing Se. Eventually, there came a time where Azula was allowed to wander some distance away. Never far enough to truly disappear, but far enough where she could pretend she was alone. She would find something to occupy her hands, her restless fingers that could no longer burn. Once, she found a sprig of springy wood she shaped into a bow with a knife she had stolen from one of the villages they had passed through. Suki didn't know about that, of course. She strung the bow with thread and she made arrows to match.

Azula made the weapon because she was tired of their diet of dried food. She was prepared to fight to keep the bow when she dropped her first catch beside Mai was already boiling the rice. But Mai looked at it for a long moment, and shrugged, as she reached for the game. Azula squatted beside her. "Nothing to say?" She pretended to be distraught, her hand over her chest. "Of course, Azula can't have a weapon! She's crazy and dangerous and will kill us all!"

Mai sighed. "You could have killed us any time while we slept. With that stolen knife or with your hands or with poison." Mai raised her eyes and looked at Azula as if she knew something. Azula focused on that look, and wondered what Mai knew, what exactly she was indicating, but if she asked anything about it, it would show Mai that she'd had a landed a verbal blow, and so Azula forced herself to keep calm and to say nothing.

"Would you like the knife, Mai?" Azula asked. "To make up for the ones you lost in the ocean?"

Mai lowered the raw meat into the pot, and rubbed dried spices between her fingers to release the flavor. "I don't want anything from you. Not even your gifts of stolen things."

Azula laughed, which drew Ty Lee's attention. "Did you make that?" she asked, pointing to the bow.

"Of course, I did," Azula said. "I'm very talented."

Ty Lee simpered as she sat beside her. "You're just the most talented person that I know."

Mai rolled her eyes, but Azula just smiled at Ty Lee, who was staring at her as intently as she had in the Cave of Two Lovers. Azula turned away.

Suki joined them, and asked if she could look at the bow. Azula nodded, expecting perhaps for Suki to throw it into the fire, but she could always make another one. Besides, she wasn't ready to fight Suki yet. Not with Ty Lee and Mai clustered so closely around her. Besides, Suki couldn't really stop her, not in the long run. Azula could wait. Azula had waited her whole life. She was used to it.

But Suki looked at it, pretended to draw it, and nodded as she gave it back to Azula. She gripped it in her hands, tight so that her knuckles ached, as Suki went to sit on the other side of the fire. "Perhaps I should come with you on these hunts," she said mildly.

Of course Suki didn't trust her. If it had been Mai or Ty Lee, Suki wouldn't have even bothered to invite herself. "There's no need," Azula said, smiling as winningly as she could, the one some had once described as nice. The one that could make her look like any other normal girl.

Mai almost laughed, until she seemed to remember she was incapable of it, and she started coughing instead. Ty Lee thumped her back as she looked at Azula.

"But you're more than welcome to come," Azula amended, and looked away when Ty Lee smiled at her.

So Suki accompanied Azula on her hunts. They didn't speak, which was just fine with Azula, because it scared the game and talking was stupid anyway. Still, once as they prepared their prey to be eaten, Azula watched Suki's skilled fingers, and wondered why she was still here. She had already said that she didn't care what happened to Azula, so why was she here getting her hands dirty when she could have just put a stop to it as easily as she had put a stop to any of the other plans that Azula had come up with.

Azula looked at Suki out of the corner of her eyes, and wondered what she was planning, what she was up to. Something was going to happen in Ba Sing Se-she could feel it. Suki was going to turn her over to the authorities, who would be more than delighted to have the person who had practically single-handedly conquered their city in their incompetent hands. Or perhaps she was planning something more elaborate, and intended to leave Azula dead behind her. She'd blame it on a hunting accident. Those things happened. Azula tried to see if Suki carried any weapons but she couldn't see anything. But then, Suki still hadn't seen her hidden knife so that meant nothing.

Azula saw her hand begin to tremble, and so she clenched her fist, hiding it behind her.

And then, on a hot day, on a day where they weren't able to find anything, they found a river. Their skin burned, so they set their shoes aside, and they waded in the water. It ran low because of the hot summer, just barely lapping at their ankles, but still Suki smiled. "The water is nice and cool," she said.

Azula looked at Suki with her eyes closed and thought about how easy it would be to just push her face front into the water. There were stones, and the water was low. She would easily crack her head. Azula looked at the sun until her vision bled with spots. "It's because it's running so fast," she said as her toes curved around a pebble. "Probably running from its problems." She thought of her father. She thought of Zuko. She thought of herself, walking across the Earth Kingdom for her bending or for her mother, neither of which she was expecting to find but it was easier being here than in the Fire Nation capital trapped in her own room.

But Suki laughed. "I get it." Azula looked at her. "I just remembered, you like puns. Avatar fan girls," and Suki was laughing again. "It wasn't funny at the time, but-" Suki kept laughing, not uncontrollably, but softly, as if something was slowly unwinding inside her.

Azula watched her, taking one small step backwards away from her. It wasn't that funny, and besides, laughter didn't mean anything. Father had laughed when he had burned Zuko. He had laughed after he had been crowned Firelord. But Suki would notice eventually that she wasn't laughing, and then she'd ask her why, and Azula would not know what to say, and the helpless feeling would come back, even though it never went away, not really. Azula tried laughing with Suki, like Ty Lee had shown her once, a long time ago.

Suki had never heard it before, so maybe she would think it was real. Maybe she did because, for a brief moment, she smiled at Azula as she suggested they pick up their things and find Mai and Ty Lee.

Then came the day where they arrived at the ferry. They made camp, even though it was noon, to rest so that they could continue the last length of their journey refreshed.

"I can't believe we're almost there," Ty Lee said, stretching luxuriously. "My feet are so tired!"

"Finally," Mai said. "I thought we'd never arrive."

"We need to make sure not to call you Azula," Ty Lee said, slipping her hands through Azula's. "We don't want them to execute you."

"They wouldn't," Suki said, as she poked the fire with a stick. "Not without a trial."

Azula scoffed. "Trials don't mean anything." She remembered some of the ones she had seen in the Fire Nation. They promise of justice hadn't protected anybody. Zuko would probably change that though, since he was such a goody-goody.

"Not here," Suki said. "Maybe in the Fire Nation."

"Then I suppose I just imagined Lake Laogi," Azula said. "I wish I had had more time with the Dai Li the last time I was here. Their methods of persuasion were fascinating. Purifying, in its way. They used a candle flame, did you know, to brainwash their more troublesome citizens, burning away the thoughts they didn't want you to think." Azula sighed. "They really were firebenders at heart."

"That was different," Suki insisted.

"Whatever you say," Azula said, smiling serenely and sweetly.

"Where should we go first?" Ty Lee said. "If your mother came here as a refugee, she would have found Zuko for sure! They would have both been in the poor circle of town."

"Of course she would have," Azula said. "Which is why we're going to see my uncle first. Zuko thinks his uncle has his best interests at heart, but I wouldn't be surprised if he had kept them apart for Zuko's own good. Why would you want to go back to the Fire Nation when you could just have Mom back?" Azula kicked a stone into the fire.

Mai's chin jutted sharply towards her. "You mean Zuko wouldn't want to go back to the Fire Nation if he could have her back."

Azula rolled her eyes. "That is who we're talking about, isn't it?"

"But that's not what you said," Mai said. "You worded it so that anybody could feel like that, not just Zuko. Like you could actually feel like that."

Azula stood to her feet, her hands clenched into fist. "What did you say? I would never feel like that. I wasn't the one who was banished-Zuko and Mom got themselves banished! They deserved each other. I always come back to where I belong. It's Zuko who's always running away. He even ran away from you, as I recall."

Ty Lee laughed, as she always did, as she pulled Azula back down to sit beside her. "Oh, Mai. Even if she did say it like that, Princess Azula's not like other people!" Her fingers tucked Azula's hair behind the shell of her ear. "If you had to choose between your mother or being Firelord, we'd know which you'd choose, don't we?"

"Of course you do," Azula said quickly.

"It's a good thing you didn't put her friends on the list, Ty Lee," Mai said. "We already know that Azula wouldn't choose us."

Said the person who had chosen Zuko over her. Azula glared at Mai through the flames of the fire until it was time to sleep, and then she couldn't close her eyes, and she wondered if they would ever make it to Ba Sing Se, even though they were already so close.

They arrived at the ferry, and it took another few days to procure the necessary papers for their passage to Ba Sing Se. Azula traveled under the name of Ursa, while Mai and Ty Lee and Suki kept their own names. They decided to be as truthful as possible, and did not hide the fact that three of the girls were from the Fire Nation. They were each given a passport that would allow them to stay two weeks in Ba Sing Se that could be renewed by following the proper protocols. They could be denied further permission to stay or be escorted from the city at any time. Suki was given no restrictions, and the captain of her old security detail recognized her and thanked her for her efforts during the war. Azula had never seen Suki blush so much. Of course, Suki didn't do anything when the same captain confiscated Azula's bow. Maybe there really was nothing to be done, Azula thought. It wasn't as if she had fought to keep it either, giving it up as easily as she had lost her bending. She knew who had the power here, in this place.

The passage on the ferry took only a few days, and then they were on the train that let them off in the lower levels of the city. The streets were thronged with people. They sold food, sausages and lightly fried roots with purple skin, cabbages, and mangoes smelling sweet enough that Azula could not stop desiring one for herself.

"I propose we split up," Azula said. "Suki and I will go to my uncle's tea shop, while Mai and Ty Lee search the lower circles."

"No," the three girls said simultaneously, sharing a long side-glance. "We stick together."

Azula forced herself not to frown, to only shrug her shoulders as she turned up a street that headed in the general direction of the upper circles and the Jasmine Dragon. "Fine, have it your way. I'll pretend that my feelings aren't hurt that after all this time I still haven't earned your trust despite my exemplary behavior."

"We'll never trust you," Mai said.

Azula smiled at her. "We'll see about that."

The city sprawled before them but, even with the crowds, Azula could still see the effects of her invasion. Or, more specifically, her uncle's conquest to free the city. She paused, her foot tracing a scorch mark, deep and black from the strength of the comet, that marred the stones under the shadow of Fire Nation tanks piled one on top of the other.

The city had not looked like this when she had sat the throne. She had taken it without hardly a single a blow, nor a single blast of fire. She had taken it with wits and cleverness, without an army, without her father, just her and Ty Lee and Mai when they had all been on the same side.

"I'm surprised they haven't fixed this yet," Azula said, nodding at the burn. "How embarrassing."

She pulled the girls back into the shadows when they neared the Jasmine Dragon, choosing instead to watch the people file in and out, leaving usually with smiles on their faces, singing the praise of the best tea in Ba Sing Se.

Her lip curled. No matter how far he sunk, at least Father would never have stooped so low as to serve tea.

"What are we waiting for?" Mai said. "I'm thirsty and I want to sit down." Then she was gone, pushing past Azula as she strode toward the tea shop. Azula wasn't fast enough to stop her because Mai just did whatever she wanted now.

Glowering, Azula followed her and found that Mai had already seated herself at one of the low tables. The person greeting guests was not Uncle Iroh though, but someone else. A young boy she didn't recognize, Earth Kingdom by the look of him.

"If you would like to join your friend," he said.

"I'm not here for tea." Azula cut past him, smoothing her hair so that it hung sharply, framing her face. "I'm here to see your master. He would be a fat old man who loves to eat just as much as he loves to drink his tea."

He blinked at her, then called over his shoulder. "Iroh! There's someone to see you."

"Tell them I'm coming and that I'll only be a moment."

Azula's skin pricked, became too small and too big for her all at the same time, squeezing her organs and her heart. She blinked hard against the easy tones of that voice, how soft it sounded, how it didn't sound like it belonged to the same person who was always telling her that she was crazy, that she needed to be controlled, that she was dangerous, that she needed to go down—

Then Iroh bustled out, his apron stretched tight over his stomach, his eyes half closed from the force of his smile as he prepared to greet whoever had asked for him. But then he saw who it was and his smile disappeared completely. His eyes widened. He stopped walking towards them until he saw Suki, standing only a few paces behind Azula. "What are you all doing here?"

"Oh, Uncle," Azula said. She considered stepping in close, perhaps even embracing him as she had when she had been a small child. Instead, she leaned on the counter, tracing the grain of the wood with a calloused finger. "Is that a polite way to greet your travel-weary niece?"

"Excuse us," he said, not to her, but to the girls who were behind her.

He took her by the hand and pulled her after him in the back room, away from curious ears. "Should I be frightened, Uncle?" she called as she lagged behind him. "Are you finally going to do away with me where no one can see?"

Instead, he let go of her hand, and pointed towards a low table. She glanced at it scornfully as he began to pour tea into two small, simple cups that were not even painted. "No, I am not, Azula." He handed her one of the cups before joining her at the table. "Please. Share this tea with me."

Azula set the tea untouched to the table. "I'm not here to drink tea, old man." As if she'd drink anything he gave her. It could be poisoned.

"Then why are you here?"

"To find Zuko's mother, as you well know," Azula said, "since you were present at the time I suggested the plan."

"If that were the case, then you would not be here but rather elsewhere." He chuckled to himself. "As you see your mother is not here, though I wish she were. I miss her."

Of course he did. "You once asked me if I knew where Mom was. I told you, as I told Zuko, that no one knew." Azula leaned forward so that her shadow fell over his face, his tea. "I've thought about this for a long time. There are two possibilities: either Mom is dead, or she is not. If she's not dead, I think it's because of you. Mom would have reached out to someone after her banishment, and I think that someone might have been you. She always liked you, and she was sad about your son. But then, you kept Zuko from her, because how else would he become the prince you needed him to become? Why would anyone choose a child's love for his mother when they could have a king instead? You betrayed Zuko, just like you betrayed your whole family!"

"I have never betrayed Zuko," Iroh said, his voice soft. "And Ursa never reached out to me, though I wish she had."

Laughter ripped through Azula's throat. "Never betrayed Zuko? You poisoned him with your thoughts and ideas! You turned him against us! Father would never have had to banish him if it hadn't been for your influence!"

Iroh remained silent.

Azula paced in half-circles around him. "When did your change of heart come, Uncle? Before or after you assisted Zuko in his pathetic attempts to capture the Avatar?"

"You don't understand what you're saying, Azula."

Azula slammed her fists down on the table. "Why? Because I'm too crazy to understand anything but fire, blood, and power?"

He raised his eyes so they met hers. Distantly, she wondered how he could be so calm. "Yes."

Because she could not burn away his sad, old-man eyes, his grey beard, and the way his mouth sagged, Azula upturned the table. It splintered against the floor, and shards of wood sprayed her feet.

Spilled tea pooled on the floor.

"Azula," Iroh said, "calm yourself."

It wasn't exactly the last words her father had ever spoken to her, but it was close enough. "Don't say that to me!" When she spoke, her voice seemed shrieking. She tried to find her breath, but it was gone in flapping, panicked gasps. She tried to focus on Iroh, she tried blinking her eyes rapidly, but it didn't help. She could tell that he had lost weight, that he was no longer fat and soft. But she could not see the way he carried himself, or the look in his eyes. She could not tell if he was plotting something against her, if he was going to try to hurt her. She was nimbler than him, though, even if she couldn't hit as hard as him.

"Don't try it, Azula. I don't want to hurt you."

"I know you don't." Azula lunged toward him, and he neatly side-stepped her. "You don't want to have anything to do with me. You never have."

Iroh's face softened. Became sad. "Why are you acting like this?"

"Maybe it's because I'm crazy, as you're so fond of saying, Uncle." She tried to breathe, tried to compose herself. She didn't feel like she was in control, like at any moment she could burst into laughter, or worse tears, that wouldn't stop. She couldn't let that happen. It would only prove him right when she needed to prove him wrong. "I'm not crazy. I'm not," she added.

Iroh looked at her. She couldn't tell what he was thinking. His eyes were a mystery. "You wanted to burn the Earth Kingdom to the ground. You wanted to burn your brother. You wanted to burn the whole world, and you tried to kill the Avatar so that you could do it. What else am I supposed to think? There is something wrong with you, Azula!"

Azula rubbed her hand over her mouth. She brought it away half-expecting to see the red makeup she sometimes wore slicking her skin, but she was a footsore traveler now, with no energy or money for beautiful things. Her hand came back dry and rough. "You tried to burn Ba Sing Se to the ground. I don't see you calling yourself crazy. Maybe because you paid the ultimate price."

Iroh bowed his head. "I regret that, and I will continue to pay penance for it."

She laughed. "Is Zuko's penance becoming the Firelord? What a terrible punishment." She turned her back on Iroh, folding her arms around her torso as she glared at the wall. It was newly painted, white and speckled with green. She reached for it, tracing patterns shaped like flames. "But I'm locked in my room and sent on a mission that will make nobody happy because Mom is dead unless you're hiding her. But she's probably dead. She would have found Zuko in exile, even if you did try to stand between them. She would have come back when he was proclaimed Firelord because she loved him so much. Zuko always had Mom, and I was supposed to always have Dad, but now-" she remembered her father's last taunts before she convinced Zuko to let her go. She spread her hands before her as if she could find the answer of where to find her bending in the lines that creased her palms. Her father had had his bending taken from him by the Avatar, but she had been foolish and inept enough to lose hers all on her own. And even Zuko had never done something that stupid. She squeezed her eyes shut, screwed her hands into fists. "Father treats me like Zuko now. No, he treats me worse than Zuko. He didn't even try to touch me before he sent me away. He could have, if he had wanted to. Not with fire, of course, but I was so close to him, so close to the bars, that he could have touched me if he had wanted to. He could have left a mark on me like he left his seal on Zuko's face. But apparently, I don't even deserve that."

For the first time, Iroh seemed to take an interest in what she had to say. His eyes sharpened, and his body tensed. "You've spoken with your father?"

She looked down at her feet, at the pools of tea finding the shallow hollows in the stone floor. "Father has sent me away many times," she said finally. "On important missions he couldn't entrust to anyone else. Nothing as important as finding the Avatar though." She'd decided to take that on herself. She laughed. It was supposed to have been a fool's errand intent on humiliating Zuko, and she had laughed at the futility of it, the promise of forgiveness if Zuko could do what was supposed to be the impossible. It shouldn't be funny now with the Avatar returned and with Zuko crowned Firelord. It shouldn't be funny that she had given the credit of killing the Avatar to Zuko only for him to spit it back in her face and become his friend. It shouldn't be funny, but it was.

It was hilarious.

She should have killed all of that little gang. Then Zuko would have had no one to turn to, and they would be with their father, the Phoenix King, and she would be Firelord at home, Ty Lee and Mai beside her, while Zuko would be her agent in Ba Sing Se.

She laughed again because she could already hear her father saying how could she even think about killing them when she hadn't even managed to kill the Avatar when she had had the chance.

Good one, Father.

"What did your father ask of you?"

"The usual, Uncle-he asked for the impossible." She laughed, but then rounded on him. "Like I would actually tell you! What do you think I am, some kind of traitor? But I'm not like you, Uncle. I'm not like Zuko." She frowned again because Father had been so disappointed in her at the end, the very end. He was always so disappointed in her when he wasn't being disappointed in Zuko. She had worked hard to earn his favor, and despite everything, she had lost it. Even now, he didn't believe in her as he sent her on a fool's errand.

He had sent her on a mission she had no hope of completing. Even if she were to find her bending, how was she going to get him free? She couldn't even keep the throne safe during the comet, and another one wouldn't come for another hundred years, after they were all dead.

This was a punishment. A perfect, brilliant punishment, but one none the less. She would fail, and he had set her up to fail.

She was not good enough for him anymore.

"You wouldn't be a traitor if you told me what he asked of you," Iroh said, very gently. "He is my brother. We are family. You can tell me."

"You can't trick me, Uncle. I don't believe you. You've never cared for me, and that you should start caring now is terribly convenient. Why don't you ask him yourself—I'm sure he'd tell you since you're supposed to be brothers, after all."

Iroh sighed and he stroked his beard. "I know my brother, and I know you. He will not take his defeat quietly. He has asked you to free him, but you cannot, until you restore your bending, which is why you asked to find Ursa, so that you would have a chance to do just that. How's it coming?"

Azula shrugged. "Nice try, Uncle. I'm reformed now. I say what I mean, and I mean what I say. Why would I have any ulterior motives?"

"Because you're Azula. It is who you are. It is in your nature."

"If you had said that to Zuko, he would never have become the Firelord. You wouldn't be proud of him, like you are now." She smiled at Iroh. "You never liked me, so you never reached out to me. But that's alright. I don't need to be liked. And obviously, you don't know anything about Mom so I'll no longer waste my time in this hole you bother calling a tea shop."

She ducked through the fine, green curtains back into the main room, ignoring the feeble way Iroh called after her. She found Ty Lee and Mai and Suki drinking tea, cups warm in their hands, cradled between their palms. Their smiles vanished as she approached and that was good, and she didn't care. "Come along, girls. We're leaving."


	29. The Girl in Ba Sing Se

It was easy for them to make their way to the lower circles of Ba Sing Se. With their travel-stained cloaks, their dirty faces, and their limp hair, they looked like they belonged there.

They showed their sketch of Ursa to people trying to sell their stale food and twice-used wares. They shook their heads, their hands pushing them away once they realized they were not there to trade. Some said they might remember if they had a little incentive. One grasped at Ty Lee's braid, offering a hot meal if she allowed her to cut it off that she might make a fine wig for the nobles in the upper ring. "Thank you for the lovely compliment, but I don't think so," Ty Lee had said, twitching herself free and flitting away.

"This is useless," Mai said. "Nobody knows anything. If we offered them soup they'd say they saw her here or they saw her there." She sniffed miserably, then coughed. "And what is that smell?"

"Are you giving up?" Azula said, her voice petulant. Ba Sing Se sprawled over many miles, and the largest part was reserved for the poor people, the refugees from the war, all crammed together like salted meats packed on a ship, ready to be consumed by people who weren't even hungry. Even now she recognized women hard at work weaving cloth that would drape over the shoulders of the girls in the middle ring, and there was a man painting the brightly painted parasols they'd giggle under in the summer.

"I'm saying that we'll never find her at this rate."

Azula scoffed. "You're giving up, like you always do. Honestly, I don't know how I managed to get anything done with you around."

"Azula," Suki said. "Stop."

She would have challenged Suki to make her, but then she remembered how she had pulled her hair, and stopped her from stealing the ostrich-horses. She lapsed into silence, and they wandered the heart of the district even though their feet were sore, until they came to what could only be a gathering place. It was a fountain that gurgled, flowing with clean water. Small hard coins—blue Water Tribe money, brassy Earth Kingdom currency, and the red shine of Fire Nation gold—flashed in the water. Circling the fountain stood wicks waiting to be lit, waiting for nightfall. Azula's eyes narrowed as she followed the angle of the wood, imagining the light of the flame, and how it would hit the water.

Many would probably call it beautiful if they had come upon this place at night, with all the lanterns lit.

A young woman stood there, hands folded across her chest, fingers resting on the jutting edge of her collarbones. Her brown hair was in two braids that hung down her back. Hunger pinched her face.

"Excuse me," Ty Lee called out. "Have you seen this woman?" She waved the painting under her nose until the girl gripped her wrist, holding her still.

She looked for a long time, until Azula began to fear that maybe she had seen the woman before.

"No," the girl said. She raised her eyes, looking at their faces for the first time. "Who was she?"

"She's a refugee from the Fire Nation. We think she might have come here to Ba Sing Se for, well, refuge," Ty Lee explained.

The young woman laughed a hard bitter sound. "She has a Fire Nation look about her."

The four girls exchanged a glance. "She was," Suki said, finally.

The girl laughed again, then kicked a stone so that it skittered down the path.

"Is that a problem?" Azula asked.

"It kind of is. The Fire Nation made war on the Earth Kingdom for a hundred years, causing so many of us to become homeless, to try to find a new home in Ba Sing Se when there is only poverty. And then the Fire Nation exiles its own and where do they come? They come here when yesterday they had been enjoying the profits of our spilled blood and broken homes." Her mouth twisted, and she turned away. "I knew such a one. He bore a scar on his face, called himself Lee. I didn't know he was Fire Nation, but then it turns out he was Prince Zuko, and he was only here to conquer Ba Sing Se." Her voice started to break. "I showed him this place. My favorite spot. This jewel of Ba Sing Se, proof that even we poor citizens of the lower ring had something beautiful and ours, and they still managed to take it away."

"Did you love him?" Mai said, voice rigid.

The young woman flushed. "It doesn't matter. He betrayed us." She turned slowly, stepping beyond Ty Lee towards Azula, leaning in close. "Betrayed us to you."

"Excuse me?" Azula said.

"I recognize you. You come disguised as you did before—dressed as our poor even though you're the one that caused all this. What's the big plan? To conquer us all over again?" She spat at Azula's feet, and Azula raised her hand to strike, but Ty Lee caught her wrist, gently, and Azula froze at her touch.

"I'm a Kyoshi Warrior," Suki said. "I swear on my honor that we are not here on a mission of war."

The girl looked at Suki. "And that's supposed to make me trust you? Even if you do speak the truth, what does it matter? The Dai Li were supposed to protect us, but they betrayed us. You're no better than the Fire Nation, probably, just like them."

Azula forced herself to relax in Ty Lee's touch, forced herself to acknowledge that she didn't need to fight back and show that this stupid girl was getting under her skin. "If you must know," she said, keeping her voice bored like Mai's, "she's my mother."

The girl from Ba Sing Se laughed so hard she held her belly as she doubled over. "You must be truly desperate if you're searching for her here. I hope you never find her. What is a queen doing here?" She left them there, then, and when she was safely out of reach, Ty Lee let Azula go.

"There's no need to be rude," Azula called after the girl's retreating back as she rubbed life back into her arm. "It's not like she was ever a real queen anyway." Azula turned away, her shoulders hunched as she looked at the fountain. Ursa would have found it beautiful. She imagined Zuko and Ursa sitting at this place, and scowled.

"We should keep going," Ty Lee said. "We've barely even searched the lower levels. We'll be here for weeks!"

Azula remembered the view of the vast city from the train. Her heart sagged. She was tired. She was tired of all this. What was the use. Everyone told her she had been sent on a task that could not be finished. Why keep the charade going when there was no reason? She would never get her bending back. She would never find her mother.

Mai was looking at her, as if she could read her thoughts. As if she knew.

Azula straightened. "Yes. Let's keep going."

She turned away from the fountain and stopped. Men garbed in Earth Kingdom regalia blocked her way. Her eyes shifted as she looked at them, as she noted their stance, their rigid muscles. They were preparing for a fight, a fight against her. Once they had been under her command. Once they would have fought the her enemies. She raised her head high as she stared them down.

Beside her, Mai and Ty Lee flanked her. Ty Lee's knuckles crooked as her braid swayed. Mai stood tall and huffy, her arms folded in that false casual way of predators lounging in the sun. Her black hair shone.

"Your journey ends here," their leader said.

Azula flexed her hands, willing for her bending to return, but they only felt cold and clammy. She found the young woman they had been speaking to earlier, lingering in the shadows. She'd gone and turned them in. Smart move. Something Azula should have been expecting, but her brain had been too focused on the uselessness of this journey, of how hungry she was, of how tired she was. She looked for a way out, but she didn't see one.

The captain of the guard motioned with his fist, and manacles of stone shaped like fists flung towards her, binding her wrists behind her. "Princess Azula of the Fire Nation, you are under arrest for your conquest against the Earth Kingdom, the attack against Ba Sing Se, and the usurpation of the Earth King's throne. Do you deny these charges?"

"We are here on Earth Kingdom authority!" Suki said, waving her passport.

"That was before we knew who she was," the Captain said. "Do you think we would have ever allowed Princess Azula to return? You tried to pull one on us before. Not again."

Azula struggled only momentarily against the manacles. They were strong, and she knew when she had been beaten. A cold sweat slicked her skin, but she sighed. "I don't deny anything. To be honest, I'd do it again if I could."

"Azula, are you crazy!" Ty Lee shouted, her voiced pitched high in a petulant whine, while Suki went to speak to their captain. Mai stood between them, her hands folded in her sleeves, her eyes wandering lazily between them without saying anything.

Two guards gripped Azula by her elbows and escorted her away. "Don't worry about me, Ty Lee!" Azula called over her shoulder. "Just go on home back to Kyoshi Island."

The young woman they had met at the fountain trailed after them. "What's your name," Azula said, as she shifted her weight so she went dead and limp and boneless in the guards' hands.

The young woman said nothing as the guards struggled to make her walk.

"I guess it's easier to fight back when you have an entire army behind you," Azula said. "I don't remember you standing up against me. Why, you were probably one of the girls cowering in their doorways as the Fire Nation marched down your street. Not so brave then but now? Everything's different."

The woman stepped forward, away from the shadows. "You're right. It is." She turned away and stepped back towards the fountain, her thin shoulders hunched over as she looked into the water.

Azula never stopped dragging her feet as the guards took them away. She pretended her father was watching her. Show nothing. Show no weakness.

She lifted her head higher, chin jutting forward as a line of sweat followed the curve of her spine.

A princess always knew when she'd been beaten.

They didn't walk her through the streets of Ba Sing Se—not because they wanted to spare her the humiliation but because it would be too dangerous. They stashed her in a vehicle with no windows, something made of iron. Azula put her palm, slick with sweat from the heat, against it. Maybe she would have been able to burn through this, melt it all around her until she was splattered with molten metal, but there was nothing she could do.

She wasn't like the blind girl who could bend metal. She wondered what they would do when more earth benders began to try, and discovered that they too could bend metal.

What would this cage do for them then?

When they arrived at the upper ring, they brought her to where the Dai Li had once dragged her to see Long Feng. They threw her in a cell of her own and left without a word.

Rats skittered on the edge of Azula's vision as she paced her cell. It wasn't as elaborate as the crystal catacombs she had used for Zuko and Katara. They were probably trying to show her she wasn't worth it. It was something made of metal, and it sweated in the heat. She smoothed the wetness against her fingertips, in soothing circles before running her fingers through her hair. Would they bring her a pair of scissors if she asked them? She wrapped her hair around her wrist, held it taut from her scalp until it pulled pleasantly.

She heard her mother's voice. Such beautiful hair, she was always telling her.

Azula needed a comb, and she thought about the one her mother used all the time, the one inlaid with jade. Her face twisted, and she wrenched another layer of hair around her hand. She sat down in the center of her cell, with her knees folded as she had once done in the bright sun on Ember Island. With her eyes closed, she combed her hair with her fingers. It was long work. She remembered when Li and Lo had gathered her hair with their warm, dry fingers spritzed in perfume.

But when footsteps echoed hollowly against the stone walls, she stood. Her hair fell around her face and in her eyes.

A guard appeared, and behind him, she saw her uncle's grey-bearded face. "You have a visitor."

She folded her arms and said nothing until the guard had left. "Have you come to laugh at my misfortunes, Uncle?" Her fingers trailed over the metal walls as she stepped toward the thick bars of her door. "Let me spare you the trouble." She threw her head back and laughed, finding it in the deep pit of her stomach. Her voice echoed harshly against the cell, and she stopped as she put her hands over her ears.

Uncle Iroh remained silent until the echoes of her laughter had stopped. He remained some distance from the bars, as if coming any closer than necessary disgusted him. "I've not come to mock you. I've come to help you."

Azula laughed again, a sharp sound that wrenched her belly in the wrong ways. She gripped the bars with both hands, her face pressed between them. "Now you're concerned about me? What has changed your mind?"

"This is no laughing matter, Azula! You are in prison and accused of some very serious crimes."

Azula tapped her chin. "Well, of course I am being accused of some very serious crimes. I stole the Dai Li, ousted the Earth King from his throne, and conquered the city in the name of my father. I just can't understand why you're concerned about them now, since you had some very unkind words to say when I was in your tea shop just a few hours ago." She smiled widely. "Feeling guilty, Uncle?"

She turned her back on him without waiting for an answer. Hunger gnawed her stomach, thirst swelled her throat. Her vision blurred and dizziness made the room spin. She blinked, her breath coming in shaky breaths. The walls closed around her, and her hands splayed against them to stop their progress. It was the earthbenders, bending the metal into a closer cage. Undernourished, no fire, she could do nothing.

"Azula," Uncle Iroh said, "I will do everything I can to help you."

"Do you think I want your help? Do you think I need your help? Do you think this scares me? That I who have lead battles at the age of fourteen would be frightened by a mere jail cell, of the threat of execution? You needn't concern yourself, Uncle. Besides, you shouldn't make promises you can't keep." She turned towards him then. "I know that you're nothing but a tea shop owner, here. They might do something nice for you as a favor for saving their city from the Fire Nation, but I don't think that courtesy would extend to the person who caused it to fall in the first place."

"It is true that I have no real power here. They let me stay because of their good graces. Please, let me help you. Don't say something foolish and jeopardize your chances of freedom. Besides, even though I can do little, I am sure that Zuko can do more."

Azula's eyes glared, her lip twisted around her teeth as she surged towards the barred door, slamming into it so hard it jarred her bones. "If you send word to Firelord Zuzu, I will kill you myself, Uncle, and you won't be able to stop me for all your power."

Uncle Iroh spread his hands. "He'll know soon enough. They couldn't capture you and keep you a secret. Think about this, Azula." He put his hand through the bars, letting his wrist rest limply between them. "What do you have to prove? Your father no longer sits the throne."

"I wouldn't be here if he did," Azula said. "Zuko and the rest of them would be in here instead. Where they would deserve to be for all their treachery."

"Who did they betray?"

"My father, who else? Aren't you listening?" She ran her palm down the bars on her door. They came way filmed in dust and dirt, and she brushed them against her tattered trousers. Her father would have filled these prisons to bursting.

"But surely it was your father who betrayed them? Who continued to betray the peace between us? Just as he betrayed me when I grieved for my son, killed our father, and stole the throne for himself?"

"You were weak," Azula said. "You were a failure."

"Or how about when he betrayed your mother, banishing the throne she had gained for him?"

Azula covered her face with her hands. "He didn't really banish her! He banished her like Zuko! She bore his marks, the scars he put on her, like he did on Zuko. How is that banishment when they carried him wherever they went? He was always with them, they were always home."

Iroh leaned closer against the bars, his eyes hard, but his voice was gentle. His face was sad. "Azula-"

Perhaps he had finally run out of words of wisdom. But no, his eyes were wide. He had not known. He had not realized. That old fool. Azula ran her hands up her sleeves. "She wore long sleeves so that no one would see, but I saw. Even when we were at Ember Island she would wear her long sleeves, hiding how he had touched her." Azula slipped closer towards her barred door, towards Iroh. She put her finger to her lips as her other hand clenched around a prison bar. "It was their little secret, and I never told because I'm not a treacherous lech like you."

"Did Ozai touch you like that?"

Iroh put his hands around Azula's before she realized that was what he had intended. His hands were warm and dry. She wrenched herself away and he let her. "Azula, I have wronged you. I should have seen what your father was doing, how he played you against your brother as he was played against me, how he crafted you into a tool and a weapon for his own ends. But I didn't because you are a hard person to like, and I didn't like you. In fact, you scared me, even when you were a little girl, you scared me. I am sorry."

"I don't want your apologies, Uncle. They sicken me." She several steps back so she stood in the center of her cell. "And you should have been scared of me." There were things he didn't know that she had done, of course, and if they had known, they would be scared like they should be.

Iroh stretched out his arm even farther through the bars. "Take my hand, Azula." She didn't, but he kept it there, waiting for her to move towards him. "Your father has sent you on a mission that will fail. You will not find your firebending, and if you do, you will not want to free him anymore, I think."

"For someone so wise, you don't know very much."

"I know that your father does not expect you to find your bending. He sent you on a fool's errand, Azula, like he sent Zuko on one. He is throwing you away because you are of no use to him. It's a punishment, and look where your quest has found you. What are you to him without your fire? You're useless, something to be set aside now that you cannot be used. And he has set you aside."

"Shut up, Uncle!" Azula put her hands over her ears. "You will not poison me as you poisoned Zuko. You will not betray me anymore as you betrayed Zuko!"

"Azula," Uncle Iroh said, "please take my hand."

"Stop asking me!"

"I won't say I'm sorry that you lost your bending, because in truth I am not, but I do hope that one day you will be able to restore the balance within yourself and be at peace. But even if you do not, you will still be Azula, Princess of the Fire Nation. You will still be Azula, my niece. You will still be Azula, Zuko's sister. You are family, Azula. You will always be family, and you don't need to be a weapon anymore. You're so much more than that—with or without your firebending."

Azula struggled to breathe. She felt so weak, from hunger, and finally her legs weakened as she slid to her knees, fingers scrabbling at the wall as if she could force herself to stand.

She did not want to keep listening to her Uncle, but she could not shut him out.

"You said something to me, and I didn't think much of it because I didn't want to listen to you, because I thought you spoke lies. And maybe you were lying, trying to make us let you go. Do you remember what you said? That you carried the same legacy as Zuko, that you struggle with both sides of your nature, that Zuko alone is not the only one who can restore the honor of the Fire Nation. Maybe without intending to, you spoke the truth. It is time for you to choose, Azula."

She spread her arms wide to encompass the prison cell that held her. "What would you have me choose, Uncle?"

Iroh's face softened. "The same thing I wanted for Zuko. That you choose goodness. That you become the person I know you can be—to choose your own destiny instead of the one forced upon you by your father. I remember when you were children, when you were very, very young. Maybe no more than four years old. You and Zuko together—you were brother and sister, and you worked together, you were each other's strength. You can be that again, I think. Balance first yourself, and then the Fire Nation as you take your place at his side."

"Oh is that all?" Azula said, laughing, as she rocked back and forth with her arms curled around your stomach. "Father only asked that I regain my bending to release him. But you—you ask that I give up myself so that I can become another Zuko." Her head hung low, the matted fringe of her hair hiding Uncle from her sight.

Iroh sighed, and he lowered himself so that he sat on the dirt floor of the jail with her. "That is not what I ask. I don't want you to become like Zuko."

"That's not what it sounded like," Azula said.

"They intend to try you," Uncle said, "for your crimes. If you do not want to change to save your country, then at least put on a changed face to save yourself. I'm sure they'll believe you. Your bending may be gone, but your ability to lie is just fine."

"And what of your sense of justice, Uncle? How would lying about my change of heart as I groveled at the Earth King's feet fit into your sense of balance and justice?"

"Perhaps because I do not think it is fair that you, a fourteen year old girl, is being tried for the sins of your father."

Azula's eyes flashed as she remained very still. She had been stupid not to see this coming. They were not going to try her at all. They were going to use her to leverage Zuko in giving up his father. And he would say yes because he had no love for him anymore. Distantly, she heard herself say, "But I was the one who conquered Ba Sing Se. Me and Zuko did that."

Iroh turned away as he rose to his feet. "You are not making this easy, Azula."

"You sound like my mother. Am I supposed to make it easy for you? Go back to your teas, Uncle. I am sure your thirsty customers are wondering where they have gone."

She rose to her feet once she was sure he was gone, and began to pace. They said she was the liar—and they weren't wrong—but so was Uncle, coming in here as if he was doing her a favor when she was in no danger at all.

It was so obvious she was angry that she had not seen it coming before Uncle had visited her. It would be impossible to hide her capture from Zuko because diplomacy dictated that the Earth King send word immediately to the Firelord, informing him of her upcoming trial and the possibility of severe judgment.

Zuko, if he were wise, would not deny them for the sake of future diplomatic relations if nothing else. His speech about a new era of peace and kindness didn't have a place in the real world, where real people demanded justice.

Then Zuko, because he hated his father, would offer them someone else in exchange, someone so much better, because who would want a baby when they could have a king.

She gnawed her lip as she paced. Once he guaranteed they would have his father, they would immediately trade her for him, even though it had been her plan to conquer Ba Sing Se, even though her father hadn't even ordered her to lay siege to the city.

That had been her idea, and her plan, because she had seen the opportunity, and she had taken it without asking for permission.

If Zuko had ever seriously pursued the Avatar, he never would have taken the city. But she was different because she was her father's daughter, knowing his own mind before he shared it with her.

But they wouldn't see it that way—not Uncle and not Zuko and not the Earth Kingdom. They saw her as Ozai's weapon, his fist, his fury. Not his equal. Her stomach twisted, the last words her father had spoken before his failure ringing hollow in the fallow pit of her belly, telling her to stay behind, because he needed her to keep the Fire Nation safe.

Such an important mission that he could trust to no other.

No one had expected Zuko to attack. She had failed his last mission, something he had given her to appease her, so he wouldn't have to listen to her crying.

And she had failed.

She flexed her hands, crumpling them into fists as she struck the unyielding walls. Pain welled in her knuckles, and she struck again, over and over, and it stood tall and unyielding over her. Pain suffused her skin, and she sucked at her broken skin with her lips and teeth, hating that she felt the pain, hating the stale taste of copper as blood filled her mouth.

She was nothing, someone to shut up and box up and put away until someone more worthwhile would replace her.

They would trade her for her father, and he would receive whatever judgment they reckoned, and it would be one more thing that had been taken from her.

It soured in her mouth like bitter wine.

She would be sent away, released into Zuko's care, and this time he would not let her go.

Her knees ached as she bent against the stone floor. She cradled her bruised hand against her chest, aware of its every throb as it pounded in time with her heart.

"Why are you so cruel to your uncle, child?"

Azula's eyes flung open, her head jerked up as she recognized her mother's voice. She was inside the cell with her, leaning against the bars.

"Oh," Azula said, her voice shaking. "It's you again. I thought you left without so much as a goodbye like last time. I could say you hurt my feelings, but we all agree that I don't have any to hurt." She hung her head, her hair falling in curtains between her face. But still, she could not stop staring at her mother through her hair.

She knew she wasn't there, not really. But she looked real, she sounded real.

"I did say goodbye, Azula." Her mother moved through the bars so that she could crouch beside Azula, her hand reaching out to cup her cheek in her palm. "You were sleeping, and I did not want to wake you after asking so much of you."

Azula moved away from her mother's hand. "How convenient for you that I was asleep when you supposedly came to say goodbye."

Her mother smiled, not as widely as she did for Zuko. It was a small smile. A sad smile. "You looked at peace. I remember thinking that perhaps I had made you into what you are." She rose to her feet, her red silk robes flowing like water to her feet, the gilded hems shining in the dark. "I wish that things had been different between us."

Azula remained on her knees, her mouth twisting as scalding tears slid down her cheeks. "I'm a big girl. I've made my own choices."

"I'm so sorry, Azula. I hope you know I've always loved you."

Azula put her hands over her ears and shook her head. It wasn't fair that her mother could come and go as she pleased, whispering lies that weren't true but that Azula had once wanted to be true so badly when she had been a child. But she was grown up now. She didn't need any of those childish things anymore.

She raised her head to tell her mother this, but she was alone in her cell.

"You can't do this to me!" she said. "I am Azula, princess of the Fire Nation, daughter of Ursa and Ozai." Her voice broke over the words. "You can't just come and go as you please!" Her words echoed in her cell, clanging in her ears as she collapsed to her knees. She rocked back and forth in the center of her cell, her fingers twisting through her hair, as she sobbed.


	30. Your Guilty Heart

"What are we going to do?" Ty Lee asked, wringing her hands as she paced the main room of Iroh's closed tea shop. "What are they going to do with her?"

Mai lounged in one of the seat which was tilted against the wall. She had her hands braced against the back of her head, and her eyes were half-closed. She wanted to remain in silence, but Ty Lee wouldn't allow it. She was overreacting. "Relax. She's going to be fine. Like she always is."

"Mai is right," Iroh said as he poured tea for each of them. "She is just a child. They will request that Zuko exchange her for Ozai."

Ty Lee bit her nails as her tea grew cold in front of her. "She is not going to like that."

"She didn't like it at all," Iroh said. "She seemed surprised when I mentioned it to her. Insulted, almost."

"I'm surprised she didn't think of it herself. She thinks of everything." Mai watched the evening shadows seep through the closed blinds. Maybe she shouldn't be surprised. Azula hadn't seen what happened at the Boiling Rock coming, after all. Of course she would be too proud to realize that Ba Sing Se would rather have her father, the former firelord already brought so low. Mai rose to her feet, shoulders hunch, face sour. "Can't we go home and let Zuko deal with this mess? What's the point of him being Firelord if we have to play these political games? I don't like sitting here, not doing anything. It's boring." Worrying was not doing something. Wondering what was going to happen was not doing something. She needed something to act upon. She needed something to do. She thought of the things she could do. She could visit Azula. She could rescue Azula. She could leave and never come back.

"Perhaps you should return home," Iroh said kindly. "I can tell you are missing Zuko, and I know he misses you."

Ty Lee looked between them, her face puzzled, a frown wrinkling her smooth skin. "But Azula hasn't completed her mission. She hasn't restored her honor. She hasn't gotten her bending back." She spread her arms. "We don't know what happened to Ursa, yet!"

Mai yawned and sighed as she glanced at Ty Lee. "It doesn't matter."

Ty Lee swayed towards her, hands clenched in supplication for Mai to please understand. "It does matter! How can you say that like you don't care! I get that you don't care about Azula, but her mother, Zuko's mother?" Ty Lee looked at her with something like accusation. "Don't you care about anything?"

Mai frowned deeper as she pushed herself to her feet. Her hands clenched inside her sleeves. "I need some air." She walked towards the street, with the sun already beginning to set. She turned, half heartedly. "It won't matter. None of this matters. Azula will be free soon, and it will just start again." She listened hard for the flit of Ty Lee's feet rushing after but heard nothing, and her muscles relaxed a fraction. Perhaps Iroh had held her back, told her she needed space. Or perhaps she was tired of running after Mai when Azula was there, a flitting bit of light making empty promises in the dark.

Mai wandered the streets, hugging herself against the chill that seemed to perpetually settle over the Earth Kingdom at night. Should she see Azula in prison? A friend would do that, would see their old companion, but she and Azula weren't friends. At least not anymore, if they ever had been.

She remembered when Azula had locked her in that prison in the Boiling Rock. It was always hot there, and Mai had hated it. She had sat on her hard bed, arms crossed behind her head, glaring up at the stone walls. She had imagined what she would do when she got out. If she got out, because it wasn't as if Zuko was going to rescue her. It wasn't as if he hadn't left her behind.

Not that he had a choice, she had reminded herself. He had big things to do. An entire nation's honor to restore. A new era to create of peace and kindness. And she had wondered, to herself, where was the kindness in leaving her to rot?

Mai kicked at a stone and watched it skitter down the paved streets.

She had distracted herself from thinking about those things by thinking about Azula. By imagining her in jail too. In a cell so far away she wouldn't see anything that she cared about ever again because Mai imagined that Azula had to care about something, even if it was just for her father or for her freedom to do whatever she wanted.

But even Mai had never imagined that Azula would lose her bending as she had imagined all the horrible things that could happen to Azula if she were trapped in a jail cell just like hers. She had only imagined they would lock her up somewhere nice and cold, where she wouldn't be able to firebend.

Mai allowed herself a very small smile. The other loiterers in the streets who passed by her didn't recognize it as such, but Zuko would have smiled back at her.

Every horrible thing she hoped would happen to Azula had come to pass. She couldn't bend. She was in jail. Mai should be happy, even though she had been told all her life nothing would make her happy

She had embraced this fact about her a long time ago. She was an unhappy girl. She would always be an unhappy girl because the only things that could make her happy would never happen.

Except it had happened. And she still wasn't happy. She sighed, gloomily, as she continued to walk the streets. She wasn't even sure why she was surprised. Because of course she wouldn't be happy. This was who she was. Even when she was with Zuko, she was happy, but she wasn't happy-not like Aang or Katara were so obviously, obliviously happy.

Mai grew tired of walking, and sat down on the steps of what she thought was the university. It was deserted now, everyone gone home.

Technically Mai had not deserved to be held in the Fire Nation prison. Technically, she had been imprisoned unjustly while Azula deserved it and whatever else she got. But no matter how much Mai focused on Azula and what she deserved, she couldn't shake the doubting voice that kept whispering in her ear that it wasn't that simple.

If Azula was imprisoned for her conquest of Ba Sing Se, then Mai should be imprisoned with her—Ty Lee too. They had both helped, after all. Azula, for all her pride, wouldn't have been able to do it without them. If one of them had said no—

Mai squeezed her eyes shut. They were under Azula's command. They had not been taught to say no to Azula, they had known what the consequences would be if they did.

But none of the fancy Earth Kingdom officials in their finery had wanted them—maybe the guards had not recognized Mai and Ty Lee without their Kyoshi disguises. But she knew what Iroh would have said if they had come for them. He would have said that people don't defy the Firelord. He would have said, looked at what happened to my nephew, and he had not even openly defied the Firelord, his own father. Would do you think would have happened to Mai and Ty Lee if they had dared to say no?

And Iroh wouldn't have been wrong. Mai could easily imagine what would have happened to them if they had risen against Azula in the drill or even in Ba Sing Se.

But, still, that wasn't quite right because Mai had defied Azula before, and she had escaped unharmed without even a strand of her shiny, black hair singed. She had told Azula no when she had demanded they follow the Avatar, and Ty Lee had taken the plunge down the stinky slurry pipe alone when Mai should have been by her side. Mai had even rubbed it when she pushed open the window. We lost, she had said, and all Azula had done was wring the slurry from her hair and frown at Ba Sing Se, the determination to win burning through her.

Mai had told Azula no when she had helped Zuko escape.

She could have said no in Ba Sing Se, and she hadn't. Instead, she had watched Azula terrify the Dai Li to comply with her demands, her leadership, and she had smiled. She had laughed. She had enjoyed watching them squirm, just like she had back in school, when they were just kids.

Mai frowned. She was starting to sound like Zuko and that letter he had left behind when he dumped her.

But what could she have done? Her parents had climbed their political ladder, but they were no one, not really. They were barely even nobility and what could she have done against royalty? Azula had everything, and she had had nothing! Her parents would never have forgiven her if she had burned a bridge with Azula. Even now, they were not happy with her, even though the Firelord was her boyfriend.

Was there anything to make right, or did she just not know how to make it right?

The vastness of the Fire Nation's crimes rose high above her. The re-spun histories tangled in her mind, and she held her head between her knees.

How did Zuko deal with all of this?

By writing a letter saying goodbye.

It was easier, following the path set before them. Find a mother that was gone forever, return home when Azula wearied of her search or finally dumped them. But this?

What was she supposed to do with this? This wasn't something that just ended. It would always be there asking her what she was going to do about it-and wasn't she the one who was always looking for something to do?

She jumped when Ty Lee's feather light touch brushed her shoulder. "I know what you're thinking."

"You don't," Mai said, voice grating and resentful against her teeth.

"I struggle with it too." She sat beside her, her bare arm hugging Mai close against the chill of the evening air. "I think about how Azula is in jail for her crimes against the Earth Kingdom and how we walk free."

Mai swallowed. Ty Lee wasn't wrong, but she wasn't completely right either. There was so much more, and she didn't even know how to begin talking about it. "I don't want to talk about this with you." She hugged herself closer so that she was not pressed up against Ty Lee.

"I think about how easy people think it is to say no, and I think about how Azula hurt us without letting us know she was hurting us, and I think about how Ba Sing Se is a burden we should not bare solely on our shoulders because we were children. Our parents sent us to places we did not belong, and we did not know how to say no—even though we should have." She bowed her head, and Mai saw a tear slide down her cheek. "Don't blame yourself."

Mai bit her lip. "Then that would apply to Azula too." It wasn't quite the same, maybe. But the truth of it was there: none of them should have been there on the front lines. And maybe nobody had taught Azula how to say no either. Not that she could ever imagine Azula wanting to say no. But Azula had always been cruel, even when they were young. Mai could not think of a time where Azula would even think about saying no if someone asked her to do something mean and cruel. Maybe Ty Lee was right in theory, maybe it was true that Azula never had a chance, never had a choice, but there was something wrong with Azula. She would have chosen what they had asked her to do even if she really had had a choice.

"That's why we need to get her out and help her finish this quest, whatever it turns out being. I know she did a lot of bad things. I know she got us all tangled up in that and sometimes we even enjoyed it. I know your parents wrote you very day, asking about your friendship and asking that you become even closer to Azula because a friend of the princess is a friend of the prince is a friend of the Firelord." Ty Lee sighed. "I just think that if we help Azula, we help ourselves."

"I don't think I can do this," Mai said.

"We had some good times," Ty Lee said as she always did. "Like that time on the beach, after we left the fire and we destroyed the house of those teenagers?" She giggled, clapping a hand to her mouth like she was someone shy and demure. "The ones who thought they were all that."

Mai smiled without showing her teeth because they shouldn't have done that. "I remember. We were so angry even though we didn't know why." Her face fell. "But I know why now. Don't you get it, Ty Lee? We should have been like those teenagers, but we weren't ever allowed to be teenagers. We didn't know how to be. It shouldn't be a happy memory. Li and Lo said we would be rubbed smooth, but we weren't. It just opened new wounds, and nothing changed."

"You stood up to Azula," Ty Lee said. "That changed."

"I've stood up to her before," Mai said. "I didn't go down the drain pipe like you did."

"Because I didn't mind," Ty Lee said, "not because I was afraid of what would happen if I didn't."

"It would have been okay if you were afraid." Mai turned away, hiding her face in the shadows. "I was afraid of Azula. I always was. I was afraid that she'd burn my face, and that my parents would ask me what I did to deserve such a thing. I was afraid that Azula would say that I should be grateful that she cared enough to hurt me. I was afraid that she would see through my parent's charade and abandon me and ruin my life. It wasn't later that I realized she already knew, of course, and that I didn't even have the power of that secret." Mai fell silent, and like someone merciful, Ty Lee said nothing as she put her hand in Mai's. "I'm still afraid of her," Mai finally said after a few minutes. "It's so stupid, but I'm afraid of her. I'm afraid she's faking. "I'm afraid that once she finally accepts that she's lost everything that made sense to her, she'll come back worse than ever. I don't want to be there when she finally stops grieving. When she finally gets over it."

"It's different now," Ty Lee said. "She doesn't have any power. I call her princess because she likes it, but she's not one anymore. And soon, when you marry Zuko, you'll be the Fire Lady." Ty Lee pulled Mai around by her wrist so that Mai was forced to face her. "You have power, Mai. You're not that frightened girl anymore. Azula knows it, and she knows there's nothing she can do about it either."

Mai pulled away. "I know." Mai's voice felt as rusted and dull as the knives that Azula had caused to sink to the bottom of the ocean, to be nicked and broken by the sand. "I know all that, but I don't feel it. She looks at me and I still see that glare in her eyes when she said that I should have feared her more. I hate that I can't get away from her. She was with me in the prison, and she was with me when she was trapped in her room, and she's with me now, even though she isn't. We always talk about her."

Ty Lee smiled. "We don't need to talk about Azula! We can talk about you and Zuko and how in love you are."

"I don't want to talk about me and Zuko." She turned her face away, but there was a spot of color on her cheek. Ty Lee waited for Mai to continue, and because Mai could not deny her, she said, "I miss him." She sighed as she held her arms around the chill. The stairs of the university were hard, and she wondered why she had come out here at all when it was so uncomfortable, when she could be in the comfort of Iroh's tea shop. "I remember when I first heard that he'd been banished."

"I remember," Ty Lee said. "You didn't even ask why, but you were always looking for him, it felt like. Every time you heard a step your head would jerk up, like you'd hope it'd be him, even though you knew it couldn't be him at all."

"I hate that feeling," Mai said. "Hope that makes you think it could be even though you know it can't be. And then as time went by, I knew he'd return a stranger because of how long he had been gone, how much he would have changed. Even though I knew there was no hope that I would recognize him, I still hoped it would be him every time. It was so stupid. I missing someone who didn't exist anymore."

Ty Lee's eyes were soft. "Did you recognize him? When you were finally reunited."

Mai looked at her feet. "No. Not his footsteps, not his voice. It had deepened so much during his journey away. Even his face was different." She had not seen him after the incident with his father. Even the pictures that had once placed a price on his head had not done his likeness justice. Everything had been different when he had returned. She scowled at her lap. "And then I hated myself for missing someone so much. It made me feel so stupid, especially when he dumped me." She closed her eyes. She remembered the feel of the paper in her hand. How she had folded it carefully after she had read it through once. How it had felt so heavy in her robe. How much it had hurt. How she had wondered what had happened, what had she done to make him do that, to leave a letter without even letting her say goodbye. How could he have done that to her? Even now she wondered, even though she knew. He had told her. He had apologized for it. But still, the question lingered, and she hated that it was still there like another thing that would never heal.

"Oh come on!" Ty Lee leaned back against the steps, her hands braced behind her head as she gazed up at the stars. "It's okay to miss people you like and who like you back. I mean, I know you didn't really get that with your parents, right? You were their ticket to your father having his own governorship. And Azula wanted to make herself feel better than everyone around her, so she surrounded herself with people she could use. But Zuko never did anything like that. It's not stupid to miss that. It's nice."

"I don't want to need things," Mai said. "People use that against you." She snapped her mouth shut, her teeth clicking against each other. It was something Azula had told her. Azula would always be with her, even if she was left to rot in Ba Sing Se and she went back home to the Fire Nation.

They were silent for a moment. Clouds drifted over the moon, and the stars dimmed.

"What do you want to do when you get home?" Ty Lee asked.

"Sleep on a real bed with real covers," Mai said.

Ty Lee laughed as she stood up and held out her hand to Mai, who took it. They made the long walk back to Iroh's tea shop, and Mai tried not to think about her sleeping peacefully tonight while Azula suffered in the jail. It wasn't as if she had had nights of her own to sleep on soft beds when she had left them in the Boiling Rock.

Iroh welcomed their return, but his old face was sagged with worry and age. Sleep did not come to any of them, and once Mai got up for a drink of water. She paused when she saw Iroh still seated at one of the low tables, a small candle flickering in the shadows. His head was bowed, and she wondered at the sound of his tears, and the whispered name of his son, and she wondered why that had anything to do with Azula.


	31. Hold My Hand

Azula stood before the Earth Kingdom tribunal. Her father, if they requested him in her place, would not face something as kind of this. Ty Lee had told her so, that this was just a meeting to determine what should be done. They had let Ty Lee come to her in her cell before the tribunal. Ty Lee had washed her face with a wet cloth. She had combed her hair, and had asked if she wanted it braided. Azula had shook her head. Ty Lee had asked if she wanted it in her top-knot, and she shook her head again. So her hair hung in long lengths down her back and around her shoulders. Ty Lee had talked the whole time, and Azula had not listened. The words had gone through her, hollowing her until there was nothing left but the inevitable. She looked for her mother out of the corner of her eye, but she was never there, just like always.

The tribunal was a farce. It was a waste of time. She heard her father's voice in her ears as she clutched at the wooden seat they had provided for her near the front of the room while Mai, Ty Lee, Suki, and Iroh sat behind them along with other Earth Kingdom officials. There was even a thin, green cushion for comfort. She hated that. She hated the color, and then she caught sight of Mai looking at her, and she raised her head high.

A few minutes later, the King with his retinue, including his strange bear, arrived and occupied the raised dais at the very front of the room.

"You're looking well, King," Azula called out. "Last time I saw you, you were in a jail cell. And I heard a lovely rumor that you wandered your kingdom disguised in rags on your bear's back. Did it suit you? To wander the earth like some peasant? Did you ever get so hungry you were tempted to eat poor Bosco?"

"Don't say that about Bosco!" The king cried out, indignant, as he covered the bear's ears. Then he turned serious as he raised his eyes towards her. "I saw much in my travels after being ousted from my inner sanctums. I was eager for a chance to see the people with whom I was so out of touch, so I suppose I should thank you for that." He held out his hand as if Azula would have deigned to answer him. "But what I saw left me—" he paused, his face pinched and tired and sad—"angry."

Azula smiled.

"The fields were burned to the ground. Villages, which had once been rich and prosperous, were failing. Fire Nation emblems hung over their entryways instead of the Earth Kingdom. Our currency was Fire Nation, not Earth King. Some even wore Fire Nation red, the greens and browns of the earth forgotten. Not surprising though when their surrounding countryside is a charred scar."

"Am I supposed to feel bad about your subjects appreciating better fashion sense?" Azula said. "I assure you we aslo have some delightful pinks. Perhaps I should introduce these villagers of yours to Ty Lee."

Then Uncle Iroh's voice rang out. "Azula!"

She rolled her eyes. "Apparently, I'm supposed to be taking this seriously. Hard to do, considering the ease with which I conquered you, but I suppose I'll just have to manage it." She schooled her face into something she hoped implied she was taking this very, very seriously indeed.

"Your crimes are what this tribunal is gathered to discuss."

"There's nothing to discuss," Azula said, her voice sharp. "I attacked you, I conquered you, and you never even saw it coming. Instead, you trusted me like a fool and welcomed me into your city with open arms. If I had been here during the comet, my uncle and his treacherous associates would never have taken this city back from the Fire Nation. But my father—" her voice stumbled, and she snapped her mouth shut before she allowed her treacherous body to betray her further.

"Yes, this is what we are here to discuss," the King said. "Did you attack Ba Sing Se on orders of the previous Firelord, Ozai?"

"No," Azula said. "My orders were to bring back Prince Zuko and General Iroh as traitors to the throne. I decided to also capture the Avatar since my brother was clearly incapable of doing so." She shrugged. "Taking Ba Sing Se was just something I decided to do as a lark. I saw an opportunity to take the city, and so I took it." Her mouth was dry, and she desperately wished for water. "You should be thanking me. It should have ended the war but you still had to fight." If they had let the city go, if they had let the Kingdom go, they wouldn't have had to burn the whole thing to the ground. Father wouldn't have had to go.

The king looked surprised. "You are so young that we had thought—"

"—That I was incapable of thinking for myself?" Azula said. "Long Feng made the same mistake, and you see what happened to him."

"Your highness," Iroh said, pushing his way towards the front, and bowing deeply before him. Azula rolled her eyes. No wonder her father had stolen the throne from him. "I ask for your patience, and I ask that you lend me your ear as I attempt to explain how all of this has come about."

"No one is in the mood for your stories, Uncle." Azula yawned, dramatically. She eyed the room as she did so. There were government officials, and there was Mai and Ty Lee and Suki. They looked unimpressed with their surroundings, which Azula could not help but agree with. They were in a simple room, and the accommodations were not luxurious. But then, as Mai's eyes fell on her, as dull and expressionless as ever, Azula realized that it was with her that Mai and the others were unimpressed. Azula's eyes smoldered, her skin breaking out into a cold sweat as she turned her attention back to her uncle and the king.

She wondered how long it would take them to ask for Ozai instead. She wondered how many would say, why can't we just have both?

They would not be merciful.

"My niece is troubled," Iroh said, "and she has come from a troubled house. Though it is probably true that her father did not directly order her to take the city, I beg the king to keep in mind that Ozai did not treat Azula like a daughter, but like a weapon. He would have expected her to take the city if she could. If she had not, the punishment would have been just as severe as if he had ordered her to conquer it himself."

Azula opened her mouth to let them know that wasn't true. She was her father's daughter. His favorite. The same favorite he had left behind because he hadn't needed her-not with the comet. Her hands gripped the chair as she stared at Bosco, who stared back at her with round brown eyes. He yawned hugely, and his mouth was pink, and Azula looked at the jaws and the teeth and the tongue. A father would have let his daughter come, a king would not leave his greatest general behind, but a warrior would leave behind a weapon that he no longer needed.

These thoughts were no stranger to her. They had grown louder as her doubts festered during her journey. Even Uncle Iroh had whispered them to her, but he didn't count. He always whispered lies.

She sank back into her chair, her eyes closed. She wanted to go home. It was time. There was nothing for her here, just like there was nothing for her in the palace. Zuko would let her return, because what else would a person ushering in a new era of peace and kindness do? Mai would flit in the shadows, just on the outside of her vision. Ty Lee would return to Kyoshi Island. Her father would leave to face justice from the Earth Kingdom.

Uncle Iroh was still talking to the Earth King. What could he be saying? There was nothing to say. Only something to be done. Finally, after what seemed a long time, Uncle Iroh offered the exchange of Ozai for her freedom. Apparently, Zuko had sent communication already agreeing to the plan. Azula did not protest as she had planned, choosing instead to sit in silence as the words rolled over her, like water, like the water that Katara had turned to ice before chaining her to the grate.

The Earth King agreed because imprisoning children was not something that he could agree to, and because Azula had not killed any civilians in her conquest of the city. The Earth King hoped that their proposed trade would go far in solidifying the peace between their two nations. "Besides," the King added, his hand fondling Bosco's ears, "Ozai is truly the one responsible. I do hope, Azula, that you do not follow his example when you grow up. This is a second chance for you!" He seemed proud of himself that he would be offering anything to an enemy.

Azula bowed. "Thank you for your mercy," she said as she was led from the room.

In a few minutes, she stood on a corner of a street in the Upper Ring, surrounded by Mai, Ty Lee, Suki, and Uncle Iroh. The officials who had escorted her to and from the jail cell were no longer visible, disappearing into the shadows as quickly as they had appeared to arrest her. They shuffled their feet awkwardly, while Uncle Iroh looked at her with his sad, depressing eyes. "Are we ready to go, girls?" Azula said, attempting to rally herself. "I believe we have imposed on the Earth King's hospitality long enough."

"You are more than welcome to share a cup of tea before you go," Uncle Iroh said quietly.

"I appreciate the help you've given me, Uncle, but I have had quite enough of Ba Sing Se, and I desire to leave immediately."

"As you wish, Azula." Uncle Iroh bowed his head. "May I at least accompany you to the outskirts of the city?"

"Whatever you desire, Uncle. It's not as if I have the power to stop you."

"You need only say the word," Uncle Iroh said.

"Then consider it said," Azula shot back. Her voice scraped against her throat and through her teeth like a knife blade. She had not slept well, she had not eaten well, and she was thirsty. Worse, she did not know where to go from here. First, she had flung herself in whatever direction her father had pointed her, whether it be to bring back Zuko or the Avatar or Ba Sing Se.

But now? There was nothing. She had no idea where her mother would have gone. She was not at her old home, she was not in Ba Sing Se as a refugee. She was always gone, even when she appeared with to her saying such terrible lies.

"I was going to give you this as we drank tea," Iroh said, "but it appears that is not to be." He handed her a scroll. "This came in by messenger hawk. It is from Zuko."

"Goodness, what does he want from me now?" Azula broke the wax seal and unrolled the parchment. Zuko's script had always been bold and strong, so it wasn't hard to make out the words. "He wants us to go to the Southern Water Tribe, to make peace and reparations. Apparently, Katara is already there and is expecting us." She looked at the narrow box that had accompanied the hawk. It was stamped with the seal of the Southern Water Tribe. "Apparently he found a box of waterbending scrolls in the Fire Sages' library that he wants us to return." She turned the parchment over to see if there was anything else written on the back. There was nothing. "What does he think I am? Some kind of messenger?" But she said the words without real heat—it was a place to go, after all, and wasn't that what she had been wishing for? She had heard tales of the Water Tribe, both North and South. She had heard what had happened to General Zhao. She would not make the same mistakes. And besides, maybe she would find answers there. She knew both poles were sensitive to spirit activity. She knew that Katara and Zuko shared a bond over their missing mothers. Perhaps she could enlist her to consult the spirits as a favor for Zuko over where Ursa might be hiding or to confirm the event of her death. Whichever would allow her to return to the Fire Nation without being further humiliated.

Still, she said, "Does Zuko even know that this is out of our way? As if Mother would have gone to the Water Tribes."

Uncle Iroh tucked his hands in his sleeves. "Sometimes you find the thing you seek in the most unlikely of places."

Azula scoffed as she rolled her eyes.

They stayed long enough in Ba Sing Se to buy what they needed: thick enough clothes to protect against the cold, waterproof cloaks, seal jerky, and mounts so they would not have to walk to the shipyards which were a long way off. To Azula's shame, Uncle Iroh had to pay for most of it since Azula's purse, already bare and light of coin, had been lost during her arrest. She looked at the other three girls. Suki and Ty Lee were murmuring together, and Mai had another parchment in her hand. Azula imagined it was probably a letter from Zuko. A personal letter, hoping she was well instead of ordering to do this or to do that. Azula looked away and then cleared her throat as she pretended to be very interested in a thick coat with a lovely fur trim. "I think the time has come for us to part."

The three other girls looked up at each other and shared a glance. "What do you mean?"

"I mean that there is no need for you to babysit me any longer. I'm in no danger of attempting to reconquer Ba Sing Se, if that's what Zuko is afraid of. I have no firebending, so I am unable to be a danger to anyone of consequence. I do not believe that our mother is still alive, and I look for her only because I promised—and I will not fail on my quest when my brother succeeded in his. Nor do I believe it is possible for me to restore my bending. I see no reason for you to stay. Your work here is done. Why share my exile when you can return home?"

Uncle Iroh opened his mouth, probably to utter some words of wisdom about how she didn't have to do this alone or the value of friendship, but he stepped away. Good. This conversation wasn't for him.

"Princess Azula," Ty Lee said, slipping her hands in her. "Please don't send us away. I'm not afraid of exile, or the cold, or of you."

Azula's eyes flashed. She wanted to tell Ty Lee that just because she didn't have fire didn't mean she wasn't dangerous. Even now, by twisting her wrists just so, she could bring Ty Lee to her knees, and she would feel such pain and fear. But she didn't do that. She let her hands rest in Ty Lee's and she listened without really listening as Ty Lee trilled on. Trust was for fools, and she wouldn't trust the girls who had betrayed her, but fear hadn't worked either. What else was there? What was the one thing that would not betray her?

She was not strong enough to push people away, like she had been when she was crowned Firelord. It had been easy then. The throne room awash in blue. The flames thick and hot. Her hair undone, her robe loose around her. Banished, banished, banished, as they shuddered in fear before her, and they had left her and she had been alone, so alone. Still, she had succumbed almost instantly to Zuko. She should have done what she'd always done. She should have pushed him away too, instead of bringing him back home to father.

It wasn't fair, she thought, as Ty Lee rubbed soothing circles into her hands with her thumb.

"Fine. Come if you want. I don't care—I was just trying to be thoughtful."

The others joined Ty Lee, of course, like they always. Suki followed because Ty Lee did, and they were Kyoshi Warriors now. Mai did it for Zuko.

"But then I'm going home, no matter what," Mai had said as she climbed her ostrich horse.

They left the city quickly, and made for the nearest shore with a ship that would make port at the Water Tribe. The small box of Water Tribe scrolls was strapped to Azula's waist. They spoke little on the way, and Azula did nothing to break it.

"You alright?" Suki said at last. "Being in prison isn't fun. I would know, after all."

"I'm fine, Suki. And even if I weren't, you have nothing to fear."

"That's not what I meant, I—"

Ty Lee reached over and took Suki's hand. "Don't worry when Azula gets like this. She'll be better soon."

Azula rolled her eyes and said nothing. She wondered if Zuko had given her this task because it was truly important or if he was trying to placate her, trying to make her feel useful. "When we reach the town, we'll trade work for passage to the South Pole."

"Just like that?" Mai's mouth was set downwards. "No tricks? No plans to escape?"

Azula shook her head.

"See!" Ty Lee clapped her hands. "People do change!"

"Change," Mai said in her flat voice. "Right."

Azula said nothing, though there was plenty she could say, she thought, if she cared to do so. She could remind them they could have gone home and left her to her own devices. She could have told them she didn't care if they came with her or not.

But she didn't. She said nothing as they traveled, as she forced herself to think and to look back beyond the moment she realized she had lost her memory, beyond her challenge to Zuko to Agni Kai, beyond when her father abandoned her as the comet crested the sky, beyond the days she had sat at her father's feet as she waited for him to give her a mission.

But for all his power, it hadn't saved him. It hadn't helped him.

The package that Zuko had asked her to deliver like she wasn't a princess was heavy at her side.

When they made their way to the port, they sold their ostrich-horses to help pay for passage. They spoke to a Captain Sura, whose ship and crew traded between Ba Sing Se and the islands dotting the South Pole.

"Your work sounds incredibly interesting," Azula said, "but are you going to take our services or not?"

Captain Sura looked them up and down, appraising them. Azula glanced sidewise at Mai, at Ty Lee, at Suki, and wondered if Sura saw the people she saw. Mai's hair was glossy, shiny black again, and Ty Lee's hair was smoothly braided. Suki's hair had grown long, though her cheeks were hollower than before. Azula glanced down at herself—her clothes were clean but simple. Her hair long and undone. She wondered if Ursa would want to run her fingers through the lengths of it, binding it into something presentable, something beautiful.

But they looked liked they could work, that they could sail a boat. "We've sailed before," Azula said. "Around the Fire Nation primarily. A little in Earth Kingdom waters."

"But have you ever sailed in ice and snow?" Captain Sura put her hand to her chin. "I would hate to break the hull upon a hidden iceberg."

Azula smiled at her. "We're fast learners, and we're strong. We're the best you'll find to help crew your ship."

"And what kind of arrangements are you looking for? A permanent place or temporary?"

"We need to go to the South Pole on a diplomatic mission," Suki said. "If we could return with you somewhere to the Earth Kingdom or Fire Nation—"

Captain Sura laughed, slapping her thighs with her hands. "The Fire Nation. As if we'd ever go there willingly. No, my trade is limited strictly between the Earth Kingdom and the Southern Water Tribe. We'll hit up a few islands on the way there and again on the way back. Trip should take about a month, I reckon, unless your mission requires a lengthier stay?"

"It shouldn't take long, I promise," Azula said.

"If it does, you have my permission to kill me," Mai said.

Ty Lee laughed. "Ignore her, she's just had a long day."

"We leave at daybreak," Captain Sura said. "Don't be late."

They weren't late, and they met Captain Sura on the dock. They were welcomed, briefly, and they were set to work. It was hard work, and the ship was crowded with goods.

Azula worked herself to exhaustion, so that she might fall quickly asleep. But still, she woke during the night in a cold sweat, her thin garments stuck to her skin, crusted with salt. The boat pitched back and forth on choppy waves, and the wind billowed the narrow, blue banner fluttering wildly at the top of the mast.

Azula clutched her stomach as she scrambled across the deck and was sick over the side of the ship.

Her belly heaved until there was nothing left to throw up, and she pressed the hard wood against her stomach, to press the nausea away, as her body wracked itself with tremors and sickness.

A gloved hand offered her dried mint leaves, something from Uncle Iroh's tea shop probably. "Here," Mai said.

Azula took them and munched, not swallowing in case she threw up again. Her mouth stun and welled with freshness.

"You don't get seasick," Mai said.

"Then I must not be seasick." Azula's voice was hoarse through her swollen throat. She held her stomach and gasped at the way it twisted and writhed, the way it pained her.

Sweat shone on her skin, and chilled against the cool night breeze. Heat simmered beneath her skin but never sparked into something good. Into something worthwhile. Into fire.

"I used to dream about you in prison." Mai looked out over towards the moon. It was waning. "Alone, without friends. But you were already alone when you ordered your guards to lock us up. I guess you didn't handle it well."

Azula studied her thoughtfully. It was true. She had been alone after she had imprisoned Mai and Ty Lee, and then she had tried to make sure that not even Zuko could break through the loneliness. "At least I didn't separate you from Ty Lee. I'm sure she kept excellent company with you. Do you ever think about how Zuko never came back for you until after he was Firelord? I said what I said to Sokka to taunt him but that doesn't mean it was a complete lie. Suki did think he would rescue her and he never came until I mocked him with it. But Zuko just left you behind when he had come for a stranger. Did it hurt?"

Mai left as silently as she had come, and Azula leaned against the deck so that the wood was a cool, soothing presence against her hot cheek. She was alone again, and that was something familiar.

Her eyes fluttered closed against the pitching waves, and she thought that sleep would come once more to her.

She woke coughing salt water even as Ty Lee's and Suki's hands pried her from the deck. Shivers wracked her body as they tried to steady her on her feet. Azula's muscles were rigid, arms frozen against her chest, hands and fingers locked in crooked curves.

"Is she sick?" Ty Lee asked, hovering, as Suki touched her face.

"She's burning up." Suki glanced towards Captain Sura, who was ordering the crew and attempting to stow the sails so they could maneuver through the angry waters.

She called for them. "I need your help! Send her below, now!"

"What's wrong?" Suki said as Mai and Ty Lee shouldered Azula between them.

"Look at the skies," Sura said. "They're clear, yet the water acts like a storm is upon us. This is not natural."

The ship pitched and Mai and Ty Lee lost their balance. Wood slick with water that had splashed overboard, they slid to the stern, trying to catch their grip and failing. Azula clung to the mast, unsteadily.

She was so hot, and the water was so cold.

The ship pitched again and it flung her towards the ship's stern. She clung to the wood, and stared down at the churning ocean. It was slate grey, foamed with white-capped waves. It seemed to spiral, coils of water drilling through the depths as if it searched for the very bottom. The ship struggled against the force of the whirlpool. The captain shouted orders. The crew struggled to fulfill them as they looked scared and frightened.

In a daze, Azula climbed the ring of wood surrounding the deck. She had done this before, she thought, as she swayed to and fro, matching her movements with the pitching ship. A chill shook her hands, while her skin clammed with a sick sweat. She clutched to a wildly flapping rope that had come free as she tried to secure her footing on the slippery railings.

If she just jumped, the water would close over her. She would sink into the colder depths, until the ice crystalized around her, and she would be free of this burning fever that made her so weak and useless.

She took a deep breath as she prepared to jump. Spray splashed her face as she released the rope and looked down into the churning waters, waiting for the ship to lean just right, providing a clear path to fall into the center of the funnel of water.

Something pulled at her, at her free hands. It was Mai and Ty Lee, struggling to bring her down. "Don't do it, Azula, don't jump!" Ty Lee pleaded. Salt water streamed through her hair as her pale hands clenched bruises into Azula's aching skin.

Mai said nothing but her grip was tight as she stared at Azula.

"It's going to be fine," Azula said. "Look—" and she gestured with her chin to something that shone and shimmered in the water, something that could have been physical, something that probably wasn't. It was a purple luminescence slicking its way up through the water, up towards them. She turned to look down at Ty Lee. "Don't you think it's pretty?"

It came with one of the waves that washed over the deck of the ship. It gripped Mai, Ty Lee, and Azula, it dragged them overboard, it disappeared beneath the surface below.

The waters stilled instantly, and when Suki, lashing herself to a long length of rope, dove overboard, there was no sign of the spirit or the Fire Nation girls.


	32. That Beautiful Face

Azula woke alone, her body a part of the earth like it had grown there. Thick roots crisscrossed over her hands, her shoulders, her thighs, her ankles. Roots looped over her neck forced her face into the ground, and her mouth tasted of dirt. When she tried to swallow, to relieve her thirst, she felt something pushed through her mouth and down her throat.

She wrenched herself free from the earth and its roots. Her mouth gaped open as she pulled herself from the root that had grown down her throat. It eased from her like a thick tongue, and she gagged as she slid it free from her esophagus, length after length of thick, ropey root.

She rose, unsteadily, to her feet as she kept pulling it, hand over hand, from her until a thick bulb-like seed stuck in the soft, fleshy part of throat. Eyes squeezed shut, she tugged it free with one final pull.

The roots were piled around her feet and ankles. She made a disgusted noise as they began to move, slithering up her calves and around her knees. She kicked them away from her and scrambled onto a nearby rock. After a few minutes of searching, they slithered back into the mud, and then it was as if they had never been. Azula sagged against the rock, and desperately wished for water and for something good to eat.

The air was dim, like her vision was going crosseyed, and she struggled to focus on the vague trees, and what looked to be a grey river winding through blurred distance. She rubbed her fists against her eyes and blinked rapidly, trying to clear the fuzz in her vision, but it didn't work.

Everything was blurred like heat shimmering in the distance.

"Where am I?" she murmured. She glanced around for Mai, for Ty Lee, for Suki—for anybody.

But they were gone, and she was alone.

The rock shifted beneath her feet, transforming into a pool of water that caused her to fall with a splash on her back.

She scrambled to her feet, cursing like she had sometimes heard her father's soldiers swear when they had been unaware that she was near.

How could she focus if her surroundings were so intangible? Shaking her head in disgust, dripping water, she pushed her way forward until she found a monkey humming on a tree stump. Its eyes were closed, his hands poised in meditation.

"Mai? Ty Lee!" Azulla called out. Then, almost as an after though: "Suki?"

The monkey opened one eye, then hummed more insistently.

Azula stood very still for a moment, considering the monkey. No monkey she had ever known had acted this way—like they knew what she said, like they were displeased with the interruption of their peace and quiet.

"Hey, dum-dum," she said.

The monkey's eyes flashed open, wide and bright before he squeezed them shut again.

"Am I in the spirit world?" It would be the only thing that would explain the intransience of this space, and the behavior of the monkey. Of course her uncle wouldn't be around when she needed him. Rumor said he had visited this world after the death of his son.

She took the monkey's renewed attempts at meditation as confirmation. She tucked her chin against her palm and circled the monkey, considering it. He was small, smaller than her. "Who's the strongest spirit in this place? I want to go home."

The monkey did not speak for a moment, but perhaps he knew that if he did not answer her, she would not leave him alone. He pointed to his left, and said, "Koh. Now leave me in peace."

She followed the way he pointed and walked quickly over the ground, lest it turn to mud beneath her feet or something worse. She stubbed her toe against a half-hidden stone and it hurt, which reminded her that a spirit had probably dragged her physical body here, which sounded very dangerous and very bad.

Even if her Uncle was here to help, he probably would be useless for something like this. They said only his spirit had entered the spirit world—not his physical body.

Occasionally she asked any wandering spirits where Koh was. They screamed in fear, pointed in the same direction the monkey had, and scurried away from her. She smiled at their trembling. This Koh must be very powerful indeed, and that's what she needed in a strange place like this: power, since she had none of her own.

She paused at a narrow ravine leaning over a cliff. Wind should have clutched at her hair, but the air was still, suffocating. A giant gnarled tree rose from the surface. A narrow trail lead to its cavernous trunk, and she knew that this barren, greenless place must be where Koh dwelt.

Gathering her limbs, she coiled her muscles and jumped, rolling to the base of the hill. Her heart scudded against her ribcage, and another monkey, smaller than the one she had met earlier, jumped back from her.

The monkey had no face.

Odd, Azula thought as she picked her way into the heart of the tree. How did it breathe? How did it eat? Maybe it didn't need to as a spirit.

As she walked past, her hand snaked out and gripped it by the fur of its neck. It felt corporeal enough, it struggled hard enough.

It writhed in her grasp, and she let it go, laughing.

She descended deeper into the cave. The darkness was heavy against her shoulders, and it was hard to breathe. For the first time, a warm pant of air brushed her face, and she paused for a single moment before continuing on. "Koh?" she called out.

Something skittered in the dark, and she turned, fast like the lightning that had once burnt from her fingers. She raised her hands, settling them in the familiar pose even though she still couldn't bend.

Behind her, a voice, deep and low like the sound of two sparkrocks grating together, whispered, "That won't help you now."

She flung around, schooling her face so her aggressor would see no fear, no weakness. A baboon's face stared back at her, attached to the body of a many legged, scuttling creature.

Sweat dripped down the hollow of her back.

"You don't know that," Azula said. "You don't know anything about me."

The face shifted, and she peered into the face of a hardened warrior. His eyes flamed yellow. "I know who you are, Azula of the Fire Nation."

"And you are Koh," she said. "I suppose we are evenly matched in our knowledge."

Koh's face again morphed into a fish-creature, a small baby, a clown.

For the first time, she began to wonder exactly why Koh was the most powerful spirit she had been directed towards. She thought of the monkey, and the first face Koh had shown to her. Her skin grew clammy, and she hid her hands behind her back so they would not shake and betray her.

"it's been a long time since I've added the face of a child to my collection," Koh whispered.

"I am no child." Azula clenched her fist against the flush of anger that heated her cheek.

"But you are," Koh said. "Barely two years older than the last child who entered my lair." Koh chuckled to himself, twisting around her until Azula found herself coiled in his depths. His stolen face was very close to hers. "You are a bad liar."

"Show me the child's face, that we might compare."

Koh turned one of his many faces away. "Alas, the child succeeded in escaping with his face still his own. You are familiar with him, of course. The young Avatar Aang."

Her heart skipped, and for a moment it was hard to breathe. "Did he defeat you in battle?"

Again, his long, slow, blood-boiling chuckle erupted from the darkness. "No, but he came armed with something you do not. Knowledge."

"I know plenty," Azula said, stepping neatly from Koh's coiling body.

"Then why are you here?" Koh peered at her with a man's face—a split lip and a torn eye.

She paced around him, her fingers ticking off her reasons. "To return to the corporeal world. I don't know how I came here, much less how to return. And I need to find the girls who traveled with me. Mai, Ty Lee, and Suki."

A beady roach eye peered at her from a closeness that made Azula want to take several giant steps back, but she would not give him the satisfaction. "Why come to me?"

"I asked for the most powerful spirit, and they told me to come to you."

He coiled around her again, and she was pinned against the wall. There was no place to step away. Her skin crawled as he wound up her legs. "And did you ask why I was the most powerful spirit?"

"I'm rather in a hurry," Azula said. "Either you are powerful to take us home, or you are not. I don't need to know the details, I just need you to make it happen."

Koh fell from her then as he crawled along the sides of his home. "Home? Is that truly your request?" He leaned towards her, his face that of a woman's with painted brows and black lips. "Ask, and you shall receive. Aren't you tired of looking?"

She stumbled back, her features hardening into stone at the foulness of his breath. "Don't presume to know me."

"But you do seek, do you not, Azula of the Fire Nation?" A woman with long, brown hair melted into Koh's new face. "Her name is Ursa, and you are her daughter, and she has been gone for many years. You miss her, don't you?"

Azula's hand clenched.

"Who wouldn't miss a mother banished for such a long a time." His face changed in another woman's whose dark hair was shot with grey. Perhaps her mother's hair was greying too, assuming she still lived.

Azula collapsed to her knees, the hard ground banging against the bone. If she waited long enough would Koh reveal Ursa's face to her? Had she arrived too late? "You don't scare me—" but even her own voice stretched thin and taut and strained in her ears. She covered her mouth with her hands.

"You weren't close. You barely remember to call her mother. Do you truly even wish to find her? Why do you look so hard?"

Azula remained silent and still.

Another woman, her eyes soft and brown, peered down at her.

Azula averted her gaze and remained silent and still. She could see the shadowy shape of Koh's legs circling her in the darkness.

"Do you want to hear her say that she loves you one last time?"

"No," Azula breathed. "No."

Coils fell around her, many legs walked up her body, grasping her shoulders, her neck, until the woman's hair fell into her open mouth, catching on her dry and chapped lips.

"Perhaps then," Koh whispered with the woman's face, "for the first time?"

Azula hung limply in his arms. Her chest heaved as she struggled to breathe. Tears slid from her eyes.

"There," Koh breathed. "There." His coils tightened around her, and she scrabbled at the cool scales of his skin. "And now you will know why they call me Koh the Face-Stealer."

Pain splintered her eyes from her skull. Electricity ripped her hair from the roots, and Azula shrieked in pain before the sound itself became silenced. She could not see, she could not hear, she could not speak.

Darkness filled the pit of her body and overflowed into the shadows as Koh released his grip and she fell to her knees, her palms striking the ground and pain shuddering through her bones, resounding like bell tolls in her elbow. She would have cried but she could not.

Trembling, she put her hand, grimy with muck, to her face and felt a smooth expanse of skin where her hair should be, her eyes, her nose, her mouth.

She had no face.

Unable to scream, she scrambled from the lair, trying to remember where she had come. Perhaps the stone shifted so that she might find her way because she left the terrible chill of Koh's lair and felt the wan warmth of the spirit world against her skin. The stone turned to grass and dirt and she collapsed against it, her hands covering her the smooth expanse of skin so that none could see what more she had lost. She sat there, trembling, until she realized she could not stay here. What if Koh left his lair? What if something else found her?

Azula crawled through the dirt as her fingertips followed the stone and roots so she wouldn't trip. Wet and mud dampened her knees.

Her hands fell on something that wasn't stone, that wasn't earth. She paused, then tugged it from the dirt. It was something shaped by hands as she traced the bared grimace of frozen lips and teeth, the hollowed holes for two eyes, the ribbon worn grungy and thin. A mask with a face, which was exactly what she needed so that none would know that Koh had stolen hers. She knotted the ribbons against her skull. The mask was light against her skin, and she wondered if it was straight, if anyone would be fooled. She put the thought from her. She couldn't afford to think about that now, she only needed to stand and then to walk.

On shaking legs, she did. There was so much to fear, she realized, as she walked very slowly. She feared the stones that would trip her, the prowling spirits that could drag her deeper into the spirit world, and she feared that the others would leave her behind either because they would not wait for her or because there was no place for her in the physical world without a face.

She tried to remember how she had come here. She had been looking at the water, she had been thinking about diving into it, when she had been pulled into and had found herself here. Perhaps she could swim her way back to the physical world.

If only she did not fear the water so much.

And, as if the spirit world could read her mind, her thoughts, her foot slipped against a slippery stone. The hard ground shifted to what felt like a rushing river, and it tugged her from her feet, and carried her away to a time when she had been a child. She had asked Li and Lo where Zuko was after the Agni-Kai with his father. The water spoke with their bitter voices. Didn't she remember? He had been banished. Poor child.

It was supposed to have been a threat to frighten Zuko, and he would have behaved. Why would her father go through all that trouble to save him from his grandfather, if he was only going to banish him later anyway?

The palace had been empty without him. She had not known that Zuko was gone because he had not stopped to say goodbye. The spirit water pulled at her clothes like the familiar fear that Uncle Iroh would make Zuko weak, a quitter just like him. That Zuko would never return because the Avatar was dead. She had imagined her brother an old man returning home when she was still young. It had disgusted and repulsed her and she had waited for his return.

Her masked face slipped below the water. Panic rose in her, and her limbs thrashed until she became weary and still, bearing the weight of the water as she had born of the weight of being an only child in the absence of her brother.

The water whispered with her father's voice. "Do not disappoint me, Azula. You're the only one left."

The water bore her on her back, sliding under the mask over the smooth panes her face had become. She was a little girl again, lying awake at night, wondering who would be the next to be banished. Would it be Li and Lo, or were they too old? Would he banish her friends, Mai and Ty Lee, if she failed him?

Would he banish her?

If he did, she would challenge him to an Agni-Kai and she would win because she wouldn't cower as Zuko had.

But then she had stood before her father. It was the day after the eclipse, the day after Zuko had left them again, betraying them fully after everything. She had wondered if her father would strike her then. She could take it like Zuko never could. But then he hadn't. He'd only looked at her, and said that he had expected these failures and falsehoods from Zuko, but not from her.

He had sent her away just like the river carried her away through the nights she had dreamed of fire, to the days when her bending was the only sure thing that had never left her until it finally had, just like her mother, her friends, her brother, her father.

Anger cracked through her as she scrabbled to stop the flow of water that washed around her, that washed over her, but she could not. Her fingers clawed through the wet sandy bottom, and she dreamed of Zuko on the beach, the bonfire rising like a pillar with the force of his anger, the stab of grief somewhere deep in her heart that she was not the target of his rage.

He felt nothing for her when he was constantly in her thoughts.

If she had her eyes, she would have opened them as she screamed out her sob stories with the rest of them.

For a panicked moment she thought the water had washed the mask from her, but she brought her hands to where her face should have been, clutched the smooth wood with her fingers, traced its twisted grimace with her fingertips. Her mother had called her a monster, and maybe she wasn't wrong.

So much had happened that night, and her mother had not said goodbye.

Just like Mai had abandoned her, and Ty Lee had betrayed her. She had needed them and they were gone, because she had banished them, because she had made them choose.

They made her weak.

Even now they made her weak as she was swept along by this river, crying over their absence, pining for their presence.

Her father had been no better. He was gone from her too, and once she would have blamed Zuko or the Avatar, but they had not forced his hand to send her away from him after her brother and to leave her behind.

Zuko had been right about their father.

It cut a hole in her through which the water flowed.

She was alone, not just here, but for her whole life, she had been alone.

But Zuko had sent her on this quest instead of leaving her in prison. Mai and Ty Lee had joined her. And even though it might not be the same, and it never would be the same, maybe that was okay.

Maybe it was enough that she had failed in banishing them. Maybe it was enough that they return home and part their separate ways.

Maybe it was enough that they had tried.

The river ran dry, and Azula found herself on her knees in wet gravel and dirt. She rose to her feet and wandered slowly, following the path the Spirit World seemed to grow for her. She climbed a hill, and paused.

She couldn't see them. Couldn't hear them. But she knew they were here. The Fire Nation girls, her hand-picked friends, her right and left hands. She went towards them, her feet stepping their way, carefully, through the long grass and the thick clumps of dirt.

She checked to make sure the mask was still fastened securely to the smooth plane of skin that was all that remained to her. The knot was tied sure and fast. It was strange not to feel her long hair, to instead feel the hot kiss of the lazy breeze against her bare scalp.

She hated it. Hated the vulnerability of it.

Mai and Ty Lee must not see her like this. She should have gotten her face back before she found her way to them, but she knew she couldn't do it by herself. With them, they possessed something that Koh, the Face Stealer, did not: a team. With them, she was not alone, and Koh was alone, despite his many faces. She wasn't sure if she could survive a second round with Koh-but maybe together they could.

After all, Mai was about as emotionally grey as a girl could get. Nobody would want her face. Except Zuko. And Koh did not seem to be the type of spirit to be fond of pink.

Azula raised her hand in greeting towards them, and hoped she would still be able to do what needed to be done without her voice, without her face.


	33. That Gloomy Girl Who Sighs A Lot

Mai stood in the middle of what appeared to be a swamp. Mud stuck to her robes, and her wide trousers stuck to her legs. "Gross," she said. Craning her neck around, she looked for Ty Lee, for Suki, for Azula, but she stood alone in the wet muck stretching around her.

She took a deep breath and began to walk. Water splashed around her at every step.

If she ever returned to the physical world, Mai thought, she was never going to leave her home again. She would wake late, swathed in silks. The servants would bring her food, and she would eat from their hand.

She would happily be bored for the rest of her life.

She put her hand over her stomach. She wondered if it was possible to starve in the spirit world (for that was surely where they were) even if their physical bodies had been dragged there. She imagined Ty Lee laughing at her whenever she found her again. Who would have thought that Mai could ever find her way to the spirit world! She was the least spiritual person she knew-just look at her aura!

Mai stopped and sighed.

Still, her parents would find some reason as to why she should have returned sooner. You were with the Princess, you have should have stayed by her side, she's so smart, she's so clever, she's so perfect, of course she'll find a way to get you out of this mess!

Like it wasn't Azula's fault she was in this mess to begin with. Mai spread her hands in front of her. Her fingers still ached from how hard she had held on to Azula when she thought she had been about to jump. Why had she done that? She didn't care what happened to Azula-except, she did.

Or else she wouldn't have held on.

She sighed, again, frustrated, and sat down on a stump.

The whole thing was ridiculous. Mai was being stupid about Azula. But when she had seen her, balancing on the wooden ledge, the water in driving sheets around her, her eyes lit up with fever and something else-Mai hadn't even thought. She had just grabbed, and then she had held on until the creature had taken them with her.

They never had a chance.

She hadn't held on for Azula's sake, Mai told herself. She had held on for Zuko's sake. She was his family, his only sister. She had promised to keep an eye on her when she had proposed she go with Azula in the first place.

Mai reviewed her thoughts, tangled and jumpy as they were from the adrenaline, from how fast everything had happened. She did not recall thinking of Zuko, only of Azula's eyes, her parted mouth, her open hands as the rope came fluttering loose. The way she had seen her muscles coil to jump. No, Zuko had not been on her mind. Just Azula. Just the belly-dropping realization that Azula was going to throw herself overboard, and for what. She hadn't even though, just reacted as quickly as she had once wielded her knives, as quickly as she had drawn them against Azula once what felt like a long time go.

Azula's hand had been wet, slippery.

Mai swallowed hard, and closed her eyes.

She jumped when Azula's voice slid through her. "You missed me, Mai. You couldn't bear to be without me. I'll always be with you, no matter how hard you push me away."

Azula's hand was heavy on her shoulder. Mai could see the long nails digging into the worn threads of her robe. Leaning backwards, her gaze followed Azula's figure. She was in full Fire Nation Regalia. The Firelord's flame crested her top-knot. Her mouth was curved in a hard, low, smile. "You're not real," Mai said, dully. "You're not really her. You're just some spirit, trying to frighten me. You can try, but it won't work."

"I might as well be real. Do you think I could be here, if she wasn't here too?"

Mai didn't know the rules of the spirit world. She didn't know what could be and what could not be. Maybe this was just a mirage, a vision of Azula that would go away the closer she came. She stood up, stepped towards the vision. It remained still, smiling at her. She reached out with her hand pushed against Azula's chest, but she remained rigid, unmovable.

"You can't get rid of something you brought with you unless you let it go. But you don't know how to let go. You build walls, you keep everything inside, locked up nice and tight-like you once were. Don't you ever get tired of being in some kind of prison? Especially, if it's one you made yourself? Then you'd have no one to blame-and you always need someone else to take the blame, don't you?"

"I thought you were manifested from her physical presence, not my emotional baggage." Mai folded her arms. The damp from the swamp seemed to creep up her legs, and she wondered if she were sinking in the soft sand.

The vision laughed just like Azula. "Do me a favor, gloomy girl. When you find Azula, ask her if she's lost something. I think that you will be very pleased with her reaction. At least I would. It's so funny. Even you might laugh."

Mai closed her eyes. When she opened them, the spirit that had worn Azula's visage was gone.

Mai looked down at her robes. They were clean and dry. The swamp had disappeared, and there were only golden ridges crested with trees on the horizon. Mai strode forward with new determination. Azula could be so single-minded in her purpose, just as she was lost without it. But now that they were in the spirit world, their only purpose was to return to the spirit world so that they could see their families again.

Her parents were probably at their old estate in the Fire Nation. Along with the letter from Zuko she still kept hidden in her robes, she had received one from them, shortly after Zuko had recalled them from Omashu.

They wanted to see her, or at least Mai imagined they did, but she had avoided their visit. They could wait until she returned with Azula. She already knew what they wanted. There was no need to discuss. They would ask her why she had not intervened with Zuko on her father's behalf. Didn't she know his removal as the governor of New Ozai nosedived his political career? Didn't she care about anyone but herself?

They would look at each other, they would be angry, they would tell her to sit quietly and to think about she had done, think about she had destroyed the prospects of their family, and how could she do this to her father, to Tom-Tom?

Did she have no respect for her family?

Mai yawned just thinking about it.

Her family acted like they didn't have their big estate. Sure it wasn't as impressive as a governorship, but it wasn't even like Omashu was Fire Nation. Not anymore, at least, especially after Zuko had ordered the withdrawal of the troops, and issued formal apologies and restitution to King Bumi. That would be another thing she'd have to hear about, how the coffers would soon be empty at this rate and how the Nation would be plunged into poverty, and she wouldn't want that, would she, Mai? What would happen to them, Mai? Didn't she ever think about that?

Mai trudged on.

She hadn't seen Tom-Tom for a long time, not since she had left with Azula when she had been summoned. She only knew he was safe because of the letters from home.

He must be getting big, since that's what babies did.

But he probably couldn't talk to her, or he'd demand she play with him, and she wouldn't know how to play with him.

It wouldn't be safe to let him play with her knives—not that she had them anymore.

And it wasn't as if she could train him in their use either. He could barely stand on his own two feet, and his hands could barely hold a toy.

Maybe he could stay with her in the palace? That was even assuming she and Zuko would work out—which wasn't even something she was sure about. She could already hear her mother say, well why aren't you sure, Mai? You need to be sure!

Mai only knew that she didn't hate him. That she cared about him. That she missed him dreadfully.

Azula was going to be the death of her.

For the longest time, she had clung to the idea that Azula would never actually kill anyone. After Zuko had been banished, she had feared that Azula would imitate her father and do something similar to her or Ty Lee. Mai had been almost right-Azula had certainly threatened them more than usual, smiling when she did, like it was a game where she would always be the winner. But she never burned them, not like her father had done to Zuko. But then she had left Tom-Tom in the hands of the rebels, who could have been anybody who could have done anything. They were lucky it had been the Avatar and friends who had had him, and not someone else. And then she had tried to kill the Avatar, who had also been just a kid.

She had been afraid that Azula would betray them in some way. But no. Mai did that first. She blinked her eyes against the sweat that fell into them.

She kept forgetting that Azula had already betrayed them a long time ago, even if she hadn't really done anything. Even if she hadn't really hurt them. Even if she hadn't really tried to kill them.

She had been betraying them slowly like poison since she met them. Surrounding herself with them so she'd always have someone to push down. So she'd always have someone to target practice.

Once more, Mai stopped and looked around. She needed to get out of here. She needed to go home.

It was supposed to have been different now that Azula didn't have her bending, but it was still the same.

Mai walked until she slid down a small hill and found herself on the banks of a river. It flowed quickly, and she could not tell how deep it was. There was no bridge, and she could not afford to wander around and around until she was able to find one or a shallow place to cross.

She remembered the last time she'd been on a river bank, though at least Ty Lee had been with her then. She remembered how Azula had stood over them, her hand curled against the bone of her hip. They had been pursuing the Avatar and his friends, following the trail of the sky bison fur. They had split up, separated, so that Azula followed the avatar, and they his friends. "Don't worry," Azula had said. "I found the Avatar, and then his two friends found me. Excellent job, you two, in following them like I asked of you. If you had stopped them, I would have succeeded in my mission."

They hadn't been expecting the bison to fight as it had. How were they supposed to fight against an airbending bison with a massive tail?

She paced around them, hands folded in the small of her back. Mai remembered how cold she had been from the river, but Azula would not let them rise, and she would not build a fire. "Let me tell you a story. First, I came upon the Avatar. He was waiting for me, but he didn't recognize me. He had no idea who I was."

Like he hadn't been frozen in ice for a hundred years.

"Then Zuzu decided to join us, and I had to fight them both." She threw her head back as she laughed. "Like it was hard. My brother, the firebender oaf." She swung around on them, the laughter gone. "Don't worry, of course. I handled them easily. I had the Avatar trapped, encircled in a ring of fire when the water tribe peasants came. The ones you were supposed to be tracking and taking care of."

Ty Lee tucked herself into a closer bow. "We're sorry, Princess Azula. We defeated them, easily, but the bison—"

Azula raised her hand, and Ty Lee stopped her babbling.

"They were without the blind earthbender. She only arrived later. But she came with Uncle Iroh, who stood side by side with Zuko as he always does. Can you count, Mai, how many were against me?"

"Six," Mai had said.

Azula leaned over them, her shadow across their bent backs. "Where were you? Why are you still sitting on this river bank instead of making your way back to me? Your presence could have turned the tide of battle in my favor. Instead, I find you wringing water from your hair. Did you want me to fail?"

"No, Princess Azula," they had assured her.

But Mai had wondered how Zuko was. What he looked like now. If his scar had faded at all, if his hair was longer or shorter. It had been a long three years since she had seen him.

"What are you going to do to us, Princess Azula?" Ty Lee had asked.

Azula had turned to them. She drew a circle of lightning in the—it crackled, and they both stiffened as they saw it. But Azula aimed high over their heads, and the energy dissipated harmlessly. "I think my disappointment is punishment enough. But don't fail me again. I won't tolerate it." She pulled Ty Lee up by her arms, and Mai rose after her, her stomach unclenching, nausea flooding her system until she thought she was going to be sick in the river. She didn't know what would happen to a nonbender if they were shot through with her lightning. She didn't want to find out.

"The Avatar has nowhere to go, not really. There's only one city that he can go to seek assistance." She turned towards them, her predator smile growing over her thin face. "Ba Sing Se. And I won't fail like my Uncle did. And you're going to help me, aren't you?"

It wasn't a question. Nothing was a question with Azula. Say no, and hope you don't get burned.

Mai jerked, her body stiff from sleep, from exhaustion, already leaping to her feet as she was half-expecting to see Azula looming over her.

But there was nothing.

She frowned, rubbed her knees with her hand. Wondered why she thought of that incident when she hadn't thought of it since it happened. It was stupid of her to expect Azula to come looking for for her. Azula would get herself out at the first opportunity and leave them here to rot—if one could rot in the spirit world, that is, like they could at the Boiling Rock.

Mai's mouth twisted, and she stepped into the river to cross it. The bank rose up to meet her so that she didn't even wet her shoes. She crossed quickly and, as she began to climb the opposing knoll, she saw a flash of pink. "Ty Lee!" she cried, scrambling as she quickened her pace. "Ty Lee-is that you?"

She hated herself for even asking. A flash of pink could be anything. It could be the open mouth of some monster. It could be just a bit of light. But still she followed it until she found herself alone in a broad expanse of grassland. "Ty Lee?" she called again, without real hope.

How she hated this place.


	34. That Girl with the Pink Aura

Ty Lee woke hanging from vines in a forest. Her long braid was limp and wet from the ocean. She untangled herself and swung from tree to tree, watching the little fluttering things glimmering in her path. "The Spirit World!" She put her ear to a tree, smoothing her palm against the broad expanse of bark, fuzzy with green growing things. "Can you help me?" she whispered, hoping that someone was listening. "I'm looking for my friends! One of them is a Kyoshi Warrior, and the other is tall and gloomy, and the other is—" her tongue faltered—"well she's amazing but also angry and cruel—but I think she's getting better. At least I hope she is." She paused, then forced her voice to brighten. "Have you seen them anywhere?"

The forest stood silent and still. Ty Lee waited for it to speak to her, but when her legs cramped, she swung to the ground and began to walk.

Ty Lee tried to keep an upbeat and positive attitude as she made her way through the forest, but it was hard. She was tired of walking and she was afraid she would not find her friends. Sometimes, when she saw the sturdy branches, she'd climb to the tallest part of the tree she could reach, shade her eyes against the brightness that didn't seem to be coming from any sun, and scan the surrounding landscape. The treetops were unending, and she did not find any figures that could possibly be her friends. She seemed alone, and the anxiety rose in her as she scrambled back down to the ground to wander some more.

The silence was heavier than the heat.

She didn't know when she started speaking her thoughts out loud, but when she realized, she put her hands over her mouth, looking side to side, as if she'd see Mai standing on that rock over there, her arms folded, her long face in that downward turn of really, Ty Lee, really?

But there was no one, and she was alone.

Ty Lee tried to remember the last time she had been alone for so long. A the youngest of six sisters, who shared her face, there had been little time for her own thoughts.

And then, after Azula had come, her generosity rising them from poverty to nobility, it had felt she was always either surrounded by Azula or Mai or both. They were her family now, her constant companions.

Until she had decided to join the circus, because she had been tired of the games that Azula played. Of course, she had hoped that Azula would come and she had in time, asking her to join their most important mission ever.

"You refused me, remember?" Ty Lee stopped, and turned. Azula was there. Her hair down, wearing only her simple robes. The red ones, edged in gold. Ty Lee's heart quickened. She knew it wasn't really Azula. Azula was dressed differently. But still-this Azula was familiar to her. So familiar, and Azula still took her breath away when she was like this.

"I had to convince you to join me. I had to force you." Her frown was deep, her mouth downturned. "How do you think that made me feel?"

Ty Lee thought about that day. Of course, she had known it was Azula who had set the fire and caused the stampede. Of course, she had known that Azula would not take no for answer. She hardly ever did. But still, it had hurt that the only time that Azula had come back was when she needed something from Ty Lee. It had hurt that she hadn't cared for Ty Lee as a friend, but as something to be used. She put her hand over her heart. "It didn't make you feel anything," Ty Lee said, "because you're not really her. You don't have any idea how Azula felt, or how I felt." She shook her head, her braid swinging from side to side. "But you must know of her, because you wear her face, trying to frighten me. Would you take me to her? We have lost each other, and I could use your help."

"What if she doesn't want to be found?"

Ty Lee gaped. "Of course, she does. Everybody wants to be found if they're lost."

"Everybody?"

Ty Lee stamped her foot. A twig cracked beneath the weight. "Yes! Everybody!"

The spirit shook its head. Azula's long hair veiled its face. "I think you're wrong. If Azula wanted to be found, surely you would have found her by now."

"I can't find her because I don't know the way," Ty Lee said. "That's why I need your help, but you're not helping me! You're just giving me riddles with no answers. Please, help me!"

"Why should I help you?" The spirit bent its head, curiously.

"Why should you torment me like this?"

"You shouldn't be here," the spirit said.

"I'm only here because we were brought here! Tell me how to find her."

The spirit laughed then. It sounded just like Azula, and it made Ty Lee's heart ache. "You won't find them. You'll never find them." And then it was gone, vanished, as if it had never been.

Ty Lee could feel the tears come, and she let them, because she was alone and there was no one to tell her not to cry, that it made it her weak, that she needed to be strong. She fell to her knees, and rocked back and forth as she wept. She gripped the forest floor in fists and felt the dirt squeeze between her knuckles. It wasn't supposed to have ended like this. They had come back from the war. They had all survived, and that had been a relief because, as Azula said, people died in wars all the time.

She couldn't remember when she had realized that all three of them were on the front lines of a war. She thought it was when she was looking at the telescope from their perch at the top of the drill. There had been swarms of men entrenching themselves to meet them, to attack them, to defend their home.

She had said, "What about those muscle-y guys down there?" because it was easier to say that than to call them soldiers because if they were soldiers, then what did that make her and Mai and Azula?

Soldiers too—and she hadn't remembered signing up for that.

But she had fought because Azula had asked her to, and if she didn't, then they would have been captured, and Ty Lee would not have wanted to be imprisoned by the Earth Kingdom if they had refused to fight.

Then everything had gone wrong. Azula had broken up the team, imprisoned them anyway as if they were the traitors. But at least she hadn't been alone. At least she had still had Mai.

Then the war was over. They were released, and she could return home to the faces she had fled as a child, if she had wanted to.

But she didn't want to go back.

It only made sense to join the Kysohi Warriors. She had talents they could use, talents they wouldn't be able to find anywhere else. And when she gave them her knowledge, she wouldn't hold it over their heads like Azula had done.

She couldn't remember the last time she had truly been alone. She hadn't even seen an animal since she'd been in this forest, much less another person.

Even if that face looked like hers—she would welcome whomever it was with open arms.

But there was no one. What if she never saw anyone ever again? What if she was alone forever?

She forced herself to stand. She had to keep moving. She had to keep trying to find her friends, even if she was alone, even if it was useless and futile.

It should have grown dark by now, but something like a sunlit glow still suffused the trees. Cold settled into Ty Lee's bones, and she shivered. She wished for a fire. They could have one, she figured, if Azula were still here, if she could still bend.

She squeezed her eyes shut, and tried not to hope for things that could not be.

The last time Azula had firebended, she had nearly burned the palace to the ground. The time before that, she had nearly given Mai a scar on her face to match Zuko's.

Ty Lee had to do what she'd done. She'd had to. It was the only thing, the only way.

It wasn't just about saving Mai. It was about saving Azula too. Saving Azula from herself.

That's what friends did for each other. She had done nothing wrong. She had betrayed no one. There was no reason to be ashamed of herself.

But the shame burned deep, a low ember in the pit of her belly. She was a bad friend, just like she was a bad sister.

No wonder everyone was disappointed in her.

Ty Lee dragged a dirty wrist across her eyes, impatient. Azula would scoff at her tears, she knew, and Mai would have ignored them, she knew. She had no right to be sad. She had no claim to Azula, and Mai loved Zuko. And the minute she could see her sisters again, she would only see herself, a faceless part of a complete set, and the same cycle of thoughts would begin again-the need to escape, the need to be her own person.

Not so complete anymore if she didn't succeed in getting out of here. She had abandoned her family for far too long.

Would they forgive her? She hoped they would. But she wouldn't get out of here sitting around like this, feeling sad and sorry for herself as she wanted things she could never have.

She walked through the trees until they began to thin into grasslands. She walked until she heard someone calling her name. She almost didn't notice at first, almost didn't hear, and when she did, the silence came again. She wondered if this was a trick. But then, her name was asked again, and Ty Lee turned until she saw Mai standing behind her. She couldn't see her face, just her back, but she would recognize Mai anywhere. She ran towards her, clasping her arms around her even though Mai jumped.

"Mai!" she cried. "You found me!"

Maybe the spirit had been right when it had said that Ty Lee would not find her friends. Maybe they would be the ones to find her instead. Ty Lee was alright with that-as long as they were found.

"There you are," Mai said. Her voice was long and bored, flat as any blade, and Ty Lee loved her and her long, unhappy face.

"Oh, Mai!" She clutched Mai to her, fingers bunching through the fabric as she dipped her head in the cradle of Mai's shoulder. "You're okay! I was so afraid."

"Of course I am," Mai said, like there was nothing at all odd about being split up in the spirit world, and as if there was absolutely nothing dangerous about it.

But Ty Lee hugged Mai tighter when she felt her lightly touch her shoulder in return, felt the whisper of her hair, a little looser than it usually was in its little buns. She touched her cheek, but then stepped back when Mai stiffened in her arms.

"There's a spirit," Mai said, "behind you."

It would be an understatement to say that Ty Lee was tired of spirits, but she turned anyway to see if it appeared to them as Azula. The spirit stared at them, and it stood very still and silent. Its arms were folded across its chest, its face blue and scowling.

"I don't think that's a spirit," Ty Lee said. "It's not acting like the others. It's just standing there." Frowning, she moved from Mai's arms and approached the figure. Its face was wooden, as if it wasn't real, as if it was a mask. As she turned, she saw that was exactly what it was. Ribbons tied the mask securely to the figure's head, who had no hair.

"It's wearing Azula's clothes," Mai said.

The figure remained very still, it's hands planted on its hips, just like Azula did, when she was waiting for something. And then, it's chest ballooning as if it were sighing heavily, it began to go through a very complicated set of firebending forms that Ty Lee would recognize anywhere. Only Azula could do something like this with such grace. Only Azula would not be able to firebend while actually doing it.

"It is Azula," Ty Lee said. "Azula, what's wrong?" But there was no answer forthcoming from underneath the blue mask with its blue grimace.

"She's playing a game with us," Mai said. "We don't have time, Azula. We need to go."

It was as if Azula had not heard. Instead, she pointed in front of her, and then pointed behind her.

"Why are you wearing this ugly thing?" Ty Lee asked, reaching for Azula's face. Behind her, she could hear Mai sigh and mutter something behind her, but she didn't care. "What happened to your lovely hair?"

"She's giving us the silent treatment," Mai asked. "Why am I surprised?"

Azula fumbled for Ty Lee's hand and missed. Ty Lee peered, looking for Azula's eyes staring from behind the mask. But she saw nothing but emptiness, as if Azula had no eyes at all. "Something's wrong." Light as air, she tip-toed behind Azula, and Azula wavered for an instant, as if she could sense that Ty Lee had moved, but could not tell where. Ty Lee pulled the ribbon from the back of her head. The knot slid free, and the mask fell. Azula fumbled for it, and missed it, because Ty Lee had lunged forward and caught it first.

She was facing Mai, who staggered back, her hand over her mouth as her eyes widened. "That's what the spirit meant," Mai mumbled as Ty Lee stared at her and wondered what she was talking about.

Ty Lee turned, and nearly dropped the mask again as she bit her tongue so she would not scream.

Azula's face was gone. Her hard burning eyes were gone. The cruel curve of her mouth was gone. Her hair was gone.

Azula reached out to them fort the mask, her hands clenching around air until, nearly in a daze, Ty Lee put it in her grasping hand. Azula tied the mask over her facelessness quickly, but she did it crookedly.

"A spirit did this," Mai said. "We need to get away from here before it comes back to take our own faces."

"We can't just leave her." Ty Lee stepped toward Azula, undoing the ribbon again so that she could straighten the mask. When it was perfect, she re-tied the ribbon into a neat little bow. She turned Azula by the shoulders so that they faced each other. "There," Ty Lee whispered as she pressed her lips lightly to the grimace carved into the blue mask. "We're going to save you."

If Azula felt the kiss, Ty Lee could not tell. She could not even tell if Azula could hear them, if she could understand what they said. "Show us the way," Ty Lee whispered. "What do you want us to do?"

Azula wavered for a moment, and then she tugged at Ty Lee's sleeves as she crossed the grasslands.

"Let's follow her," Ty Lee said. "Maybe we can help her get her face again. Not even you would wish such a fate on her-would you? Maybe we'll find Suki along the way. Or she'll find us."

Mai remained silent, and then shook her head. "Let's go, before we lose sight of her. You never know when the world is going to shift into something else. And I'm not even sure Suki is here. I'm beginning to feel that we were the only ones taken."

"We have to be sure," Ty Lee said, as they rushed to join Azula.

"I can't believe we're following someone who can't see where they're going," Mai said.

But they didn't have a better idea, so they took each other's hands, and walked.


	35. Masked Lies

They were following her, and relief suffused her skin. At least Azula still had this from them, or maybe they followed her out of pity. Out of compassion. Out of a friendship they may once have had.

She felt their presence behind her.

She wondered what would happen when they found their way back to Koh's lair. She wondered if they would do what she needed them to do. If she should even ask them to do this thing—though what exactly was to be done, she did not know.

She only knew she could not do this alone, which was asking so much when she had been the one to push them from her. She shouldn't have done that, just like she shouldn't be bringing them with her now.

She had had a choice that day on the Boiling Rock, that day of the comet, when her father had left her behind, when she had raged and grieved for the loss of her friends, when she had realized that fear was just as unreliable a weapon as truth and love.

She had chosen wrong.

She had chosen to cheat.

It felt as if she was always making the wrong choice.

The truth had made Zuko stronger, and her lies had made her weaker, because Azula always lied. She had lied to get him home, and she had lied to keep him home, and she had lied to bring him to her knees.

She thought of the scar he bore from her, a shadow to the one from his father, a mirror to the one she had given the Avatar.

She lifted her hands, empty and still before her.

Her thoughts clouded heavily, and she shook her head, impatient and frustrated at the things she had lost.

What had she wanted them to know? That she was a great firebender? That she could hurt them without a second thought? That she had the power to do that and not to feel regret?

They had known. She had made sure they would not forget. She had lost her friends. Her brother looked at her with pity, her father with scorn. Her mother was a broken memory in a shattered mirror.

She tried to remember where it had started. Was it when she had first seen her father burn her mother? When she had been called a monster? It rang false now, like an excuse, and she could no longer follow the process her thoughts took as they burrowed their way deeper and deeper in her heart and mind, festering, until she could no longer remember how they came to be there.

She wondered if she could ever rip them out like she had torn the root from her open mouth.

If she even wanted to.

She put her hands to her face. The wood was hot as if baked under the sun. It was a fitting punishment that she had lost her face. She could barely bear to look at herself in the mirror, so afraid she was to see her mother over her shoulder, so afraid to see her father burning in her eyes.

She has too much of her father in her, they had said, as they gazed at her face.

Not anymore.

She was faceless, and it was right. But she could not leave her face in Koh's care. She needed it to return home. She would not stay here, trapped, forever.

As she walked, she could feel Koh's presence become closer, and she was reminded again of her selfishness in seeking out her friends. What could they do against the spirit? Now, she had only endangered them again.

It wasn't too late. They weren't there—yet.

Behind her, she felt that Mai and Ty Lee were speaking amongst themselves, though she could not hear them nor see them. There was a push and pull between them, something like reluctance or skepticism holding them back. That would be Mai, of course.

Azula knew Mai would wonder where she was leading them—was she be leading them in another trap? That would be something Azula would do. It would not be far from the truth either because Azula was indeed intending to set a trap—not for her friends, but for Koh.

He would be overconfident in his victory over her. He would fall into it neatly, just as she had fallen into the trap she had set for Zuko on the steps of the palace when she had cheated.

A warmth grew close beside her, and Azula thought it may be Ty Lee, who believed in her relentlessly. It was exhausting. It was failure waiting to happen. Eventually, Ty Lee's patience would run out. Eventually, Ty Lee would betray her completely, as she had on the Boiling Rock. Splitting them apart and leaving her behind, again.

Bitterness stung her, and Azula pushed it away. She couldn't afford to focus on the sting of it, as she had before. It had made her weak. It had clouded her thinking.

She needed her face back. That was the only thing that mattered.

Then escaping was the second thing that mattered.

The spirit world seemed to guide her footsteps. She wondered if Koh's lair was always so inviting, making sure the lost and wayward found their path to him, that they might lose the very last thing that remained to them.

It was clever, she thought, as her feet recognized the shifting patterns, the labyrinths of roots from the tree that guarded Koh's cave. Azula stopped so suddenly that Mai ran into her from behind.

Azula could not see the cave, though she remembered it clearly. Still, she could sense Koh, waiting in the shadows, his many shifting faces, his many legs, the way his voice wormed through her.

She could bring Mai and Ty Lee with her. They could try to kill him. It wouldn't be hard. She had killed the Avatar, hadn't she? And Mai and Ty Lee were fighters. But she knew they would be no match for him because Mai's joy in the fight was evident in the flash of her eyes, the gently uplift to her mouth. Ty Lee laughed outright as she flitted here and there.

And that was what Koh sought, wasn't it? Just as he had taken her face when she had cried over her mother, he would take their faces when they fought him. She knew this now. This was the knowledge that she had known before.

She could chance that they would be able to school their emotions. She could tell them and they would take the risk because what other choice did they have.

Mai shoved at her shoulder. Azula recognized her agitation: the constant need to move, the constant need to be doing something instead of nothing.

Or Azula could lie. Lie to her friends. Lie to Koh.

Azula always lies.

The accusation rang in her ears as she knelt in the long grass and pulled it up by its roots so that she might have a place to write.

Stay, she traced in the dirt. I will face him alone. If I'm not back in half an hour, leave this place. The Avatar will find you.

She couldn't hear them. She couldn't see them. She didn't know if they would obey her. As she rose, she felt the dust and small rocks buried in the soil splash against her legs, and she imagined that someone had kicked her words from the earth.

She imagined it would be Ty Lee. Of course she would be angry. Of course she wouldn't understand.

Azula shook her head. She stood tall, like she had done before when she had still been a princess instead of this outcast, desperate thing. She remembered the feeling when she could bend and, for a moment, she pretended she could.

They would remember. They would remember that they feared her, that they would obey her. In that moment, they would see the princess they had both betrayed on the Boiling Rock, and they would remember why.

Reaching behind her, she untied the ribbons from around her head, and the mask dropped beside her feet. She stepped over it, and followed the path the spirit world made for her, and went back into the cave.

Azula would have been afraid, but Koh already had her face. He couldn't hurt her anymore. Koh's shadows settled along her skin like a heavy robe, and she steeled herself, hands clenching into fists. Her heart heard the faint echo of her voice, a half-remembered come-and-get-it bravado that rang false in her memory.

She waited in the center of the pit, waited until she felt Koh rustle around her, felt the familiar pressure of his presence and his thoughts against her.

"So you come again, Fire Nation Princess. Only a spoiled brat would not abide by the rules." Koh's voice whispered in the chills that went down her spine. "The last person who came back to retrieve a face I stole did not succeed." Azula felt the cool coils of himself loop around her feet. She wondered if he wore her face or that of another unfortunate.

"If they always fail, then you have nothing to fear," she said with something that was not her mouth or her tongue but that was hers anyway.

"You imagine right," Koh said, laughing, as he scuttled up the rocky ceiling. "Have you come with a plan in mind? I sense others, waiting for you. Perhaps you thought to bring them to me in exchange, hm? Or perhaps you wish to exchange that box of scrolls. I'm not like the owl!"

Azula would have smiled, but she couldn't. "The scrolls aren't for you." She forced herself to relax, to inspect her nails as if she didn't have a care in the world. But her thoughts turned back towards Mai and Ty Lee, and she feared that they would not obey her. That they would come after her, and that would be the worst thing in the world. It would ruin everything. It would ruin them.

She hung her head. It was a stupid dream, a silly imagination. Of course they would not come for her. They were not friends. She had made sure they would not want to come for her when she had come down here, alone. Why would she even think about them disobeying her, defying her?

Her hands clammed with sweat, and she hid them behind her back to hide the way she trembled. She was losing focus. She was thinking about the way things might be instead of the way things were. She was slipping.

"You're ashamed of even considering offering me your friends," Koh said. "But it is your nature, isn't it? Why be ashamed of that? Do you see me ashamed of stealing your face?"

Azula rallied herself. She steeled her voice so that it would not rise. "You're boring me, Koh. Did you think I'd beg? What princess ever begs? But I do have a proposition that won't waste our time: let's play a game." Azula paused and the air prickled as Koh stopped his roving. He was listening. "If I'm able to choose my face out of the many you have stolen, if I am able to recognize it as my own, then you will return it to me." It was a gamble. All faces were the same with their eyes and noses and mouths. The last time she had looked at herself in a glass, she had smashed it to pieces with a hair brush. She could not even imagine how their journey on the seas and over the land had changed her.

Koh resumed scuttling around her. "Did you know that I had another visitor after you? Yes, I seem to be quite popular. It was someone you know."

He paused, as if he wanted her to guess, but this was not the game she wanted to play.

"I know a lot of people."

Koh seemed to sigh as he slithered in the darkness. "It was the young Avatar."

Azula wondered what the boy had said, wondered what had coaxed him to come back to his place when he had escaped it with his face before.

"I showed him your face, hoping to encourage some sort of reaction. You did try to kill him, after all! But he only bowed and thanked me before continuing on his way."

"Is he still here?" Azula asked. If the Avatar was here, perhaps not all was lost. Perhaps, Aang would be able to guide them out—or, at least, Mai and Ty Lee. She could find her own way out if the Avatar thought being stuck here in the spirit world to rot was a fitting punishment.

"I don't keep my many eyes on insignificant Avatars—you've seen one, you've seen them all. I'm sure he'll be back once he figures out a way to return your face. Apparently, he hadn't anticipated your return. Not that I blame him. Most can't bare to face me a second time." Koh laughed briefly, then sighed. "And yet, in the same day, the both of you have returned. Perhaps, you and the young avatar have more in common than I thought."

Azula reeled backwards. The idea that she and the Avatar had something in common was absurd. Still—if he were here, perhaps she should abandon this gamble and pursue his help instead. But that was foolishness. Of course Avatar Aang would not help her. She had tried to kill him. She had tried to kill two of his friends. She could not risk asking for his help because who would help someone who had done all those things?

"Do you want to play my game or not?" she asked.

"I would, if I knew what was in it for me."

Azula nodded, briefly. "If I lose, I will keep you company in your long solitude and lure more lost ones to your lair. I can be very convincing. In addition to that, you will have a chance to steal the faces of my two friends. They have been instructed to look for me if I do not return within the hour. They do not know it was you who took my face. They think you're the only one who can help me." By the time Koh realized her deception, it would be too late. Ty Lee and Mai would be safe from him.

He did not take long to consider. "Very well, Princess. I cannot turn aside a chance to add two new faces to my collection. I hope you are prepared to recognize yourself—it is not something many are willing or able to do. Let us begin."

Azula reached out her hands to touch the face that Koh presented her. It was a round face, not like her sharp, angular one, so she shook her head, and another face morphed beneath her palms. Long hair, stiff with salt, tangled between her fingers, and her heart jumped against her rib cage. But then she felt that the lip was marred by a scar, and she wondered where they had got it, if someone had given it to them, if it had been someone like her.

Her hands faltered for a moment, and Koh asked, "Are you giving up so soon, Princess?"

She shook her head, holding out her hands once more to touch Koh's ever changing faces. She felt powdery white paint shimmer against her skin. She traced the jutting chin of a warrior. The golden circlet of a crown was hard between her fingers. They were the faces of adults, men and women who were long lost.

Not her face.

Not the face of a child.

Once, when she had been very young, she had touched Zuko's face. This was before Ozai had burned him, when she and Zuko had been nearly friends. He had shoved her off, he had laughed at her.

But she remembered the curve of his cheek. The way his hair brushed her finger tips.

Would she be able to recognize her face not by trying to find just herself in it, but him too? They might be separate but they were still connected because they were their father's children, weren't they?

Then she realized that she should look for not just Zuko, but for her father too, and even her mother. Everybody had always said she looked just like her father, but she must have a little of Ursa in her too, for was she not her mother?

There was something familiar, and Koh waited because she wished for him to wait. She caressed the high rises of that face with her thumbs, brushed her fingers over the eyes, wide set and burning like her father's. She covered the left side of that face as she had once done before when she asked the Avatar if he didn't see the family resemblance. She reached downwards, her fingers stroking the lips that were curved and cruel and cold, a mouth carved in her father's image.

She reached upwards again, looking for the hair she had combed diligently every day. The strands were smooth, and fell through her fingers like water. She bowed her head as touched the face's cheeks, and she felt the tears seeping from its eyes. Crying as Zuko had wept before his father, crying as she had wept chained to the grate, crying as surely as her mother had wept as she left in exile.

And then, as she became more sure that this was the face she sought, she realized, slowly and dimly, that she saw differently, because when she lifted her head, she saw the vast length of Koh coiled deep in the depths of the tree, and she saw that he wore her face. "This is mine," she said, pressing her palm against her brow.

Koh howled and his home shook with his rage. "You see well," he said, once he had calmed himself. "You have learned much since we first met. But be gone from here. Once your face is restored you have no business here, and I will not be inclined to speak to you again."

Koh disappeared in the shadows, and Azula could see both with the strange sight that had allowed her to recognize her face, and again with the sight that was more familiar to her, something earthly and fleshly and mortal. She put her hands to her face, and felt her nose, her mouth, her teeth, her eyes stinging from the dirt on her fingers. Closing her eyes, she wiped the trace of tears away with the tattered cuff of her sleeve.

Then she dashed up the stairs to see if Mai and Ty Lee had waited for her, or if they had left as she had told them to.

They were there, and Ty Lee, holding the mask Azula had dropped, threw herself into her arms. Mai hung back as she always did, wondering if they were going to actually try to get out of the spirit world, or if they were just going to stand around talking about it.

"Thank you for holding this for me," Azula said, as she took the mask from Ty Lee. She considered it silently. It was the mask of the Blue Spirit, the one who had become an enemy of the Fire Nation, the one who had rescued the Avatar from Zhau. The one who had worn this mask was a traitor to the Fire Nation, to the once Firelord, her father. His wanted poster had hung beside the Avatar's, her brother's, her uncle's. Her hands trembled as she held it.

Ty Lee stood on tip toes and flicked at a spot on Azula's forehead. "You've got something on you."

Azula pushed her hands away as she tied the mask back over her face. "Leave it be."

"Why are you covering your face?" Ty Lee asked. "It's awful."

Azula shrugged. "It feels like mine now, I suppose. And also, I don't want the spirits here to recognize our faces. I want them to think twice before looking at us." She knew that a mask was nothing to them, but it was something to her. Her body had betrayed her too many times, and it was her face that had betrayed her to Koh. She could not risk another betrayal, she could not risk for the beings here to see anybody but the person she wanted them to see. And besides, it was fitting for her to wear this. After all, now she was just as much a traitor as her brother, and whoever it was who had worn this mask. She had listened to the words her Uncle whispered about her father, how he had felt for her. She had not even fought when they had traded her for him in Ba Sing Se. She was obeying her brother's wishes. Another failure to add to her long list of failures.

They wandered aimlessly for a long time. They wandered until their feet hurt. They wandered until they wondered if the spirits had gone and they were actually elsewhere, caught in between lands.

"We still haven't found Suki," Ty Lee said.

Azula walked steadily onwards. "I don't think she's here."

"Or do you just not want to look for her?" Mai said.

"I think she would have found us by now if she were here," Azula said. She had not told them about the other sight that she had found in Koh's cave. Pausing, she willed the sight to come to her, and it did. She looked for Suki, but she was nowhere to be found. The spirits had dragged them here because they were Fire Nation, taking them as they had taken the water benders. She thought, distantly, of Hama. She would be pleased. She would cackle just as she had on the ship. Azula laughed thinking of it while Ty Lee looked at her strangely.

"I'm glad you're amused," Mai said, her hands folded across her chest.

"If she's not here," Ty Lee said, "then she must have called for help."

Azula remembered what Koh had told her in the cave. "The Avatar was here. He came to Koh. I think he was looking for us. Maybe she sent a hawk."

"We're not going to actually wait for him to come find us, are we?" Mai asked.

Azula shook her head. "We're not."

They walked in more silence. Azula let her fingers ripple through the grass and against the strange flowers that bloomed here. They walked until they came to a valley filled with fog and spirits. They crawled on their hands and knees to the very edge, the dirt crumbling underneath their palms, and peered down.

Azula could not see through the murk, and she found herself leaning farther in to get a closer look. She had thought at first it was spirits in the valley, but now she saw that she was wrong.

They were people, like them.

"Maybe they can help us," Ty Lee said.

Azula rolled her eyes. "If they could help us, don't you think they would have helped themselves? They're just as stuck as we are."

"It was just an idea," Ty Lee said, her fists resting against the spurs of her hips.

Mai looked down at the fog and the people. "It was a bad one."

"Well, we're in a bad place." Ty Lee twisted her braid through her fingers. "We could go around?"

Azula shielded her eyes from the yellow light of the spirit world—something that could have been a sun if it set or rose. But there was nothing but the expanse of fog and souls, so she climbed a nearby straggling tree, her toes finding the nooks and crannies that could carry her weight, her legs wrapping themselves around the topmost limbs, her eyes squinting as she looked and saw it stretch out farther and farther away.

They could walk around it, but it would take a long time.

She swung down, hanging from her knees for an instant before she flipped, landing lightly on her feet, her body poised to bend, as if she could still do it, as if it wasn't gone from her. She rose, stiffly, her eyes shifting from Ty Lee and then to Mai. "I will go through." She plucked at her worn garments, unraveling a single thread. She reached for Ty Lee's hand, then stopped herself. "May I?" she asked instead.

Ty Lee stared at her for a moment before holding out her hand, and Azula tied the end of the thread around her finger.

"Once I find the other side, just follow this, and you'll find it too." She stepped away from them as Ty Lee stared at the thread tied loosely around her finger. Mai glowered at the fog and then to Azula. "There's nothing to worry about, of course. I'm not afraid," Azula said.

"Nobody said you were," Mai said.

"I could see it in your faces," Azula said, her voice sullen as she slid down the steep incline into the deep valley that held the seeping fog. She looked up when she reached the bottom, but the fog was too thick to see Mai's or Ty Lee's faces. She took a deep, steadying breath, like the kind she used to take before firebending, and turned to face what she thought was forward. She raised her arms out like Ty Lee did when she danced across the tightrope. It would be hard to walk in a straight line, but Azula could do it. She knew she could.

They would not be lost.

It was hard to see, but beyond that, the fog was not frightening.

Her arms trembled with the effort of keeping them raised. Her eyes burned with the effort of keeping them focused on their aim instead of being distracted by the shifting souls and the way the fog circled around her, as if it was conscious of her every movement.

It was then that she bumped into a familiar face: Admiral Zhao.

She remembered the stories of the few men who had survived the assault on the Northern Water Tribe. She remembered that her brother had tried to save the Admiral.

That dum-dum. Saving people who would only stab him in the back later. That was not how you survived. That was not how you won.

Or maybe it was, since Zhao was stuck here and her brother was the Firelord.

Zhao gripped her shoulders, and her concentration waivered, her gaze forced from what she thought was the other side. His face was pale and desperate. His hair was unkempt, coming out of its loose top-knot.

She tried to step back, but he wouldn't let her go, his fingers curling through his clothes, gripping her skin tight enough to bruise. She struggled with him, and he only held her tighter. "Spirit! Have you seen the Avatar?" His breath was a cold vapor against her face. "Have you seen him?"

Without thinking, she clenched her hand into a fist, and slammed it against his cheek. He reeled back, and she pushed her foot against the hollow of his belly, completely knocking him off balance as she neatly slipped out of his grasp. "If I had, I wouldn't tell you." She tried to find the spot her eyes had lost, but it was gone, and she tried to look back at her footprints to see if she could rediscover the path she had walked, but they were gone as if she had never been. "Besides, don't waste your time, Zhao. Either you'll lose, or you'll just become his friend."

But Zhao was already gone, and she was utterly alone. She went to unravel more of her thread, but it was broken, and she only held a scant length of it between her fingers.

She forgot to breathe as she fell to her knees, her fingers scrabbling in the dirt for the other end that she might knot them together, so that Mai and Ty Lee would not remain lost and waiting on the brink, waiting and waiting for her to tug the thread to let them know it was alright for them to cross in her footsteps.

It was gone.

Her hands shook in her lap as she raised her head, her neck craned back. She willed herself to see with the sight that had let her see her face so that she might see the faces of her friends once more.

Nothing. Nothing but the swirling clouds of fog drifting around her, blinding her vision, weakening her will. She looked towards her right where she thought the other side was, and then back to where she thought she had come.

She chewed the meaty insides of her lips until she tasted blood.

She could leave them. She could continue her way forwards, find the way out. Maybe even come back with the Avatar to fetch them.

She imagined them waiting for her. She imagined them giving up on her and plunging forward into the fog.

She imagined them making it through, passing her in the dark, and climbing out the other end themselves.

She imagined making it out herself, and coming back with Avatar Aang only to find them gone, lost in the spirit world.

She clutched her belly, rocked back and forth on her knees, hot tears streaking down her cheeks, even as a voice that sounded like hers whispered in her ear, "I thought you didn't have sob stories like the rest of them?"


	36. Oh Sister, What If You Lose It All

Zuko could barely be seen over the number of scrolls piled on his table. They detailed the current state of the government, provided a complete inventory of the various artifacts kept in the royal libraries, and featured requests from several Fire Nation governors petitioning for aid, funding, and other economic sensibilities. Scattered across these scrolls were pamphlets issued by the New Ozai Society protesting the outrageous decision to release Firelord Ozai to Ba Sing Se so that he might stand trial for his supposed crimes against the Earth Kingdom.

Zuko's tea had gone cold, almost stale, as he slept for the first time in several days.

A messenger hawk interrupted, tapping his window as it fluttered to the sill, and he jumped as he rubbed his bleary eyes with his fists. There was a tube stamped with the mark of the Southern Water tribe strapped to its back. A very small smile flitted across Zuko's face before he realized that whatever news the hawk bore was probably bad, and then he wished that Mai were here instead of elsewhere with Azula.

He sighed, scraped his palm against his jaw, and opened the window. The hawk sat prettily on his arm as he plucked the scroll from its tube, but then it hopped to Zuko's shoulder and began to run its beak through Zuko's hair. "Stop," Zuko said, half-heartedly as he made no effort to remove the creature. "You're pulling." The hawk chirruped something that could be construed as an apology, and nestled its beak in the curve of Zuko's neck before flapping back to the window to preen in the sunshine.

Carefully, Zuko unrolled the parchment.

He had been right. It wasn't good news.

It was from Aang, whom Katara had invited to the South Pole when Suki had shown up without the Fire Nation girls, distraught about a spirit that had pulled them into the ocean. "I've never seen her like this," Aang wrote. "Even Sokka can't get her mind off what happened."

Zuko's face fell as he continued to read. He had long been expecting some kind of word about Azula—something about how she had given them the slip or tried to stage a coup or anything but this.

Aang told him how he had immediately meditated into the spirit world, where he had learned from a very grumpy monkey that Azula had gone to visit Koh, which according to Aang, was a very dangerous and very bad idea because Koh steals people's faces, Zuko, he steals their faces! Koh was wearing her face when Aang found him, and then he had to return to the physical world because he didn't know how to return a face that Koh had stolen. Later, he would commune with his past selves. They had lived a long time, he assured Zuko. He would learn what to do from them.

Zuko crushed the parchment in his fist and squeezed his eyes shut. That was just hopeful Avatar talk.

He didn't know how this Koh looked but he imagined his sister without a face, without those cold, sparking eyes, without the cunning turn to her mouth as she smiled like she always knew something he didn't know.

Zuko swallowed around the lump welling in his throat. He tried to smooth the parchment where it had wrinkled, but his hands shook. "But she always makes it," he whispered. Didn't she?

He thought of her falling through air. He thought of him falling with her, so far apart. He thought of Katara pulling him to the bison as Azula fell. She wasn't going to make it. There was nowhere to go but down. He thought of her hair come undone, caught in the wind, as she used her piece to catch herself on the rock as she watched him go.

She always made it.

Except this time. She was lost in the spirit world. Lost forever, maybe.

Zuko looked at the hawk, who seemed sad, but perhaps that was just him being lonely and wishing for someone to share these feelings, whatever they might be. He could not tell if he felt grief or relief, and he hated that he did not know.

He kept reading. Of course, Mai and Ty Lee had been dragged down with her, and of course Aang couldn't find them either. But at least, Koh probably didn't have their faces. That was some reason for hope, Aang wrote, as if that would assure Zuko. Aang told Zuko that he wasn't sure how long Azula could survive without her face if her physical body had been dragged into the spirit world. Anything could happen—but realistically speaking.

Aang didn't finish the sentence. Only assured Zuko that he would do everything he could to find her and to help her.

The letter crumpled in Zuko's hand, beginning to smoke and smolder before he remembered that he did not want to fuel his bending with anger and rage and hurt. He dropped the parchment, its edges burnt black, and stalked circles in the ornate rug under his feet.

He needed to go to the Southern Water Tribe. He needed to find Mai and his sister, even if it would be better if she were to stay in the spirit world where she couldn't hurt anybody ever again. But maybe it wouldn't come to that. Maybe—she would change.

He had changed, hadn't he?

But he couldn't just up and leave. The political situation was already unstable, and who knew what the New Ozai Society would do if he absented himself from the throne.

Leaving would only send his people into more turmoil, and his duty had to be to them first.

He looked down at his clenched fists.

He trusted Aang, of course. But it felt wrong for him to sit by and do nothing, to not even try to find them. He took a nearby cushion and screamed into it before calming himself.

If only Uncle Iroh were here. He would know what to do. He was a spiritual man. He himself had gone to the spirit world, or so it was rumored. But even if it wasn't true, his uncle still gave pretty good advice. Even Aang thought so.

Zuko took the cup with the stale tea, and poured its remaining contents into a wilting, potted plant that someone had put in a spot where the sun shone. He prepared a new cup of tea like his uncle had taught him. He warmed the water with a soft blaze from his fingers, and he steeped the jasmine just like his uncle had when they were the owners of a simple tea shop of their own.

He breathed the steam from the jasmine tea, letting the ritual calm his nerves, the scent bringing to mind his uncle's voice, a steady stream of words that he couldn't quite make out but that sounded comforting, that reminded Zuko this wasn't the end, that there was still hope, that he could meet his responsibilities as Firelord and to Mai and even to his sister.

Once he had finished drinking his tea, Zuko sat at his writing desk, stretching a blank piece of parchment taut so he could write without blotting the paper and soiling the words. He dipped his brush to write first to Aang, and he left it poised there over the shallow bowl of ink, little drops dripping from the brush.

What to say?

Resentment bit towards him, and he closed his eyes against it.

He should have known that this would happen, and now that it had, there was no time or energy to wish that things were different. He could only deal with the situation as it was.

He thanked Aang for letting him know what had happened to his sister, but that he could not go to the Southern Water Tribe because of the tense political situation in the Fire Nation. He told Aang he was writing a second letter to his uncle requesting that he come in his stead, and that it would be better that way, since he was more experienced in the ways of the spirit world.

He couldn't help but smile sadly at that. Besides, he would just mess it up if he were to go, just like Azula had messed it up. He could imagine it now, him tromping around in such a world.

Sometimes, it was easy to forget that he and Azula were so similar in so many ways, and how much he hated that. Their bending had been affected by the decisions they had made. He'd often wondered why Azula had lost hers to a greater extent than he had. Maybe it was because she had lost so much and had been unable to find something to replace what she had lost.

It was as if they were fated to perpetually follow the other in some kind of spiraling circle that lead nowhere.

Even though she had been born second, she had always been before him in the eyes of his father, and he had always struggled to follow in her footsteps. He could still hear his father's voice saying that Azula had been born lucky, and that he had been lucky to be born.

He had come to Ba Sing Se as a refugee and beggar, and she had followed him as a conqueror.

She was to have been crowned Firelord, but then she had been defeated, and he had become the new Firelord, vowing to restore the lost honor of his people.

What one started, the other always seemed to finish.

They were separate, and they were whole.

He touched the scar his father had branded into his face, his eyes closed and his head bent. He remembered the way that Azula's hair had been cut jagged over one side of her face, how she had covered her own eye with her hand as she challenged the Avatar to recognize her.

The family resemblance, she had said, her voice brittle with malice.

The thought made his breath shudder in his throat, and he looked down, pulling his robe away from his chest, staring at the livid scar that Azula had burned into him, nearly matching the one that she had given Aang.

"We're not the same," he whispered to himself.

But he knew that wasn't always true. She was the one who had first told him that only he could restore his honor, and he had repeated her words to Aang when he asked that he might join them.

He squeezed his eyes shut.

There were times where Azula was almost kind, and those was the hardest moments of them all. They never lasted, and they were always lies except when they weren't.

She had stepped behind him as they were on the boat to Ba Sing Se. She had smoothed the fringes of his hair with her fingers. She told him that she hadn't been lying when she had said she needed him, that she couldn't have done it without him.

What if she hadn't been talking about conquering Ba Sing Se or killing the Avatar?

What could they have been to each other, as brother and sister, if only things had been a little different, if only they had been on the same side for once in their lives? Except they had been—in Ba Sing Se—and they had done something horrible together, and she had needed him.

Grief belly-bottomed through him as he glanced down at the brief letter he had written to Aang. Maybe he would never see Azula's face again except in memory or in bad dreams.

But then there was the sick relief chasing through him, too, and he let the brush drop from his fingers as he sagged against the desk and wept.

It took a long time before he was able to compose himself enough to write his uncle, pleading with him to make his way to the Southern Water Tribe, so he could help Aang find his terrible, terrible sister.

* * *

 _Chapter title inspired by Avicii's Hey Brother_


	37. Will I Hear You Call?

"I thought you didn't have sob stories like the rest of them?" Azula raised her eyes to see Zuko standing over her. His hair was undone, like it had been when she had captured him in Ba Sing Se. His robes were simple red. He was smiling at her, like he was teasing her about something.

She rolled her eyes. "What are you smiling about?" She scrambled to her feet, and Azula thought there was something missing, that there was something she should be remembering about him. "What are you doing here?" Where was he supposed to be anyway? She tried hard to remember. She just knew he wouldn't be here, not here with her, at least. Not here in the spirit world.

He took a silk handkerchief from his sleeve and handed it to her. She held it awkwardly in her hand. "I came to find you."

"Well, I'm here, so what do you want to say?" She tapped her foot. "It's not like I don't have places I need to be." Her hand went to her waist, and there was the box of water bending scrolls pressing against her palm, and then she remembered. "Don't you want me to get to the South Pole just as quickly as I can, Firelord Zuzu?"

He looked at her for a long time. He didn't even react to the nickname he hated so much coming from her. There was something different about him, she suddenly realized. There was something missing. Not his crown, no not that. He never wore that anyway even though he had taken it from her, like he was always taking something she cared about, or worse, someone. She thought of Mai and hated her.

"Come home," he said. He wasn't smiling anymore, but there was something in his eyes that made her look away, and then look back again. His scar was gone. The one over his eye, the one their father had given him. Disgust soured in her belly.

"You're not real," she said. She clutched her head with her hands, as her mouth twisted behind the blue mask she still wore. "I'm hallucinating again!" She didn't know what was worse, seeing her mother or her brother.

"And you're wearing something of mine," Zuko said. His face was very serious, but his eyes were still kind. "You can have it. You need it, like I needed it."

Azula glared at him. "I don't have anything of yours. How can I, when you sent me away with nothing?" She shook her head, frustrated. Why was she talking to him like he was the real Zuko? He wasn't. He never would be.

The light refracted around Zuko, blinding her for a moment as she shielded her masked face with her hands. A figure stood in front of her where Zuko had once stood. He was dressed in black, dual swords held in his hands. He wore a blue mask like hers.

She knew him from the wanted posters.

"Didn't you ever wondered who the Blue Spirit was, and why he just disappeared?" His voice still sounded like Zuko's.

"I didn't care who the Blue Spirit was! The only thing that mattered that he was a traitor."

"Your uncle is a traitor, and your mother did vicious, treasonous things. And then Zuko betrayed you too. Maybe treachery runs in the family. Maybe it even runs in you." Shadows twisted between them as they stared at each other with their matching blue faces. "Don't you want to see?"

Azula stepped towards him. She reached for him through the light, through spiraling columns of dust kicked up by her feet. She touched the blue wooden jaw and lifted it upwards, so that the blue ribbons tying it to him slid through his hair.

Zuko was behind the mask, and this time his face was scarred just as she remembered him. "I told you it was mine first," he said, smiling that I-told-you-so grin.

"So I'll just take it like I've taken everything else," she said. She remembered the knife that Uncle Iroh had given Zuko, when she had only been given a doll. How she had wanted that knife. It was more hers than Zuko's, but she had let him take it from her because he had been sad about Mom, because Mom hadn't been there to make her give it back.

The spirit began to fade, the black cloth becoming translucent and golden. "But I also said that you didn't need it anymore. Keep it, because what one starts, the other always finishes." The spirit dissipated, leaving her alone.

"Am I supposed to understand what that means?" Azula said, raising her hands as she turned in circles. "You might need to stop speaking in riddles! You know that's what Iroh does, not Zuko."

She paused, panting, out of breath and exhausted. Her hair stuck to the back of her neck as she tried to remember what she was doing here. She was supposed to be looking for something, but she couldn't remember what. The people milling around her were more ghost than person, and she wondered if that was what she was turning into. If, after losing her face, she was about to lose her body too. She held her hands out in front of her, and they seemed real. She touched the mask again, just to assure herself it as there. At least, she would always have this. She'd always have a face of some kind.

A heavy hand fell on her shoulder and turned her. Azula raised her hands, ready to fight, but lowered them again when she saw that it was only her mother, the jade inlaid comb still nestled in her brown hair.

"Azula," she said, and Azula closed her eyes, her voice hitching, as her mother held her hand in hers.

Her mother tilted her face towards her, guiding her by the chin. "Why are you wearing this horrible thing?" Her hands traced the carven features of the mask before reaching behind to undo the knots. The mask fell into Azula's lap as her mother cupped her cheeks in her warm, dry palms. "There you are—there's the daughter I know and love with her beautiful face." She leaned back a little as if she could get a better look at Azula. "You've grown so lovely. I'm so proud of you." Her mother's voice was soft as she tucked Azula's stray hairs behind her ears.

Azula jerked away, but her mother gripped her tighter, her fingers spread wide across Azula's face. Azula blinked at her, resentful, even as her glance slid away to be lost in the fog. She could not brush the hot tears that were about to spill down her cheek lest she accidentally touch her mother's hand.

"What are you doing here?" Azula asked. "I've been searching for you everywhere."

"Have you?" Her mother looked at her with piercing eyes. "It appears your search is now at an end."

"You've been gone for a long time," Azula said. She wanted to tell her that Zuko still fed the turtle-ducks like she had taught him. That he still picked flowers as they once had done together, especially when the fire lilies had been in bloom. How he had kept doing it, even after she was gone. Azula had laughed at him, had plucked the flowers from his hand, ripping the petals off because Mom wasn't there to stop her, because Mom wasn't there and she wasn't ever coming back-didn't Zuko know anything.

Her mother caught the tear that shed, and then she wiped her face with her gilded sleeves. "This is a change, my love. Aren't you the one supposed to make the others cry?"

Azula pushed her away, and she disappeared. She wondered if her mother was really here or if it had just been another hallucination or if it had just been another spirit playing with her, making fun of her and her emotions.

She put her hand to her face. The mask was still there even though she hadn't put it back after her mother had taken it off without asking first. That had been rude. Hadn't mother said herself that she should always ask first?

So it had been something else. "I'm not crazy!" she screamed as if there was anybody there to hear her, as if there was anybody there to answer.

"Hello?" someone cried out.

Azula's head jerked up, her eyes roving as she willed herself to see through the fog.

"Is there anybody there?" the voice continued. "Cousin, is that you?"

Azula squeezed her eyes shut, trying hard to remember.

"Cousin!" the voice was more desperate now, more urgent. "Cousin! If you are there, can you bring me word of my father? I have not seen him, and I am afraid. Cousin?"

"Lu Ten," Azula called, finally remembering, finally finding her voice. She hated how it wavered in her mouth, trembled against her teeth. "There's nothing to be afraid of unless you're a coward. I'm over here."

Azula pushed her way through the crowd of souls, following Lu Ten's voice until they found each other. He looked much the same as when he had marched off to war so long ago, never coming back like all the other soldier boys who never came marching home. Maybe he looked a little gaunter, a little thinner, a little worse for wear after besieging the thick walls of Ba Sing Se for so long before finally meeting his end. She thought, you should have come with me because no one died when I took Ba Sing Se. But she bit her tongue, and looked him up and down. He still wore his Fire Nation armor, so many years out of date. "Fancy meeting you here," she said. "Your father tried to find you after you died, but I suppose you missed each other when he came to the spirit world, overcome with grief. But maybe he didn't think to look for you here."

If her words hurt, Lu Ten did not reveal it to her. Instead, he only said, "I am glad then that he did not find me here in this lost place. If he came to find peace and balance with himself, I would not wish him here." He smiled at her.

Azula scowled. "That's Avatar talk."

"I do miss him very much," Lu Ten said. "Sometimes, I think I see him here—but it's just the fog, taunting me." He looked down at his feet, his boots still stained with blood.

"I'm sure he misses you very much, even after all this time," Azula said. "It doesn't mean anything that he has found himself another son."

Lu Ten's head jerked up, a smile playing at his mouth, and Azula could not bear the sight of it. "What? He's married again? What excellent news!"

Azula held her head back and laughed. "Nothing so obvious. It's only Zuko. Uncle Iroh considers him like a son. I suppose that would make you something like brothers if you were alive."

Lu Ten considered her. "By that logic, that would also make you something like my sister."

Azula looked away from him. "I don't need any more brothers."

"Are you dead?" Lu Ten asked as he took her hand in his.

She stared at their hands held together, and decided that they could stay like this. They would not become separated this way. "I don't know if I'm dead," she said. "I don't even remember how I came to be here." She kicked savagely at the dirt, and it disappeared in the mellow light. Had she been dragged or had she been swallowed? She remembered the water, the rush of it up her nose, the salt stinging her chapped lips, her lungs burning for air. Just like last time, when Katara had defeated her. She hadn't been able to breathe, hadn't been able to bend. Even now, she struggled to breathe as she put her hand over her chest, trying to guide the breath in and out.

"Azula?" Lu Ten said, his voice tender.

What had she said, so long ago? That she wished he would die so there would be no heir, one step closer to her father taking the throne?

She looked up into his kind eyes and hated them.

Behind the mask, it was very easy to say, "It would be very hard to kill me."

Lu Ten smiled a little. "I can imagine so."

"What are you doing here?" Azula said as she surveyed the fog and the wandering figures within it. "What is this place?"

"It's a punishment," he said in his quiet voice.

Azula rolled her eyes, laughing. If anyone was less deserving of punishment in their whole family, it was probably Lu Ten. "I don't understand. What have you done to deserve this?"

"I laid siege to the Earth Kingdom."

"You father did—and he didn't even do that good of a job," Azula said. "You were just doing as he asked so that he would be pleased with you, proud of you. You were being a good son."

"I could have disobeyed him, but I didn't."

Didn't like Zuko hadn't until the very end. Didn't like she hadn't. Azula chewed the inside of her mouth. "You've been here for a long time then. Have you found the way out yet?"

He turned away from her. "If I had, do you think I would still be here? But enough of this dreary place. How is my father?"

He's a fat old man. General only in name. Nothing of a dragon about him. A loser who caused her brother to betray her, who kept whispering and telling her things she did not want to be true. "He's well," she said instead. "He owns a tea shop in Ba Sing Se."

Lu Ten's face fell. "The Fire Nation conquered Ba Sing Se."

Azula stared into the fog. "Once it did. I brought Ba Sing Se to its knees without taking a single life. I had the great walls torn down." She smiled the old cruel smile. "I didn't even have to do it with a machine. The earthbenders did it for me, benders sworn to defend the Earth Kingdom and its legacy and its history. They abandoned their king, they abandoned their generals for me."

"You?"

Was that a hint of anguish in his voice? If so, it was misplaced. "Me. I succeeded where my father failed, where your father failed." She could not curb the flare of pride that burned through her. "And then your father took it back during the comet with members of the White Lotus. I wasn't there because I had to keep the throne safe." Her voice started to shake and she took a moment to calm herself. "I challenged Zuko to an agni kai. After all the times he'd wanted to fight me and I turned him down, I finally said yes." Had she been so desperate, so weak, to feel the need to prove herself to him? The old anger returned as weak and pale as the ghosts with whom they walked. "He would have beaten me." She touched her face, her palm covering the eye where Zuko bore his scar. If she had shot him with lightning, he would have turned it back towards her. It would have lifted her off her feet, scorching her flesh, if she had not cheated. Maybe, she would have even born a scar like him, instead of giving him one of her own.

But what did she care for honor even though it was the lack of it that had eventually brought her to her knees.

It wouldn't have mattered. She would have lost no matter what she had done.

"What happened?"

Her cheeks flushed, and she was glad she wore the mask so that he could not see. She was embarrassed. Ashamed. Angry. She was tired of feeling all these things when she had burned them away a long time ago with her blue fire that left nothing behind. Her eyes welled, again. Why couldn't she stop crying? She was like Uncle Iroh when he had come back from Ba Sing Se, crying all the time. "I cheated, and I attacked someone who had accompanied him to take me down because I knew it would hurt Zuko more than anything I could throw at him. But he threw himself in front of her like a fool and took the blow meant for her. She was the one who defeated me, a waterbender named Katara. And then she saved Zuko because he would have died otherwise." Her mouth was dry and bitter. She looked at Lu Ten, who had paused, looking at her, his mouth open as if surprised. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

"What happened to you, Azula?"

She held his gaze for a moment before turning away, gesturing vaguely towards the fog and the spirits trapped within its thick coils. "It's obvious, isn't it? I'm lost. We're lost." She forced a smile to her lips that he couldn't even see because of the mask she wore. "But don't worry, cousin. We'll find a way out. And if we can't find one, we'll make one."

But the simple fear that she would not see Mai or Ty Lee or even her brother again nagged her as they wandered through the ghostly souls. They walked in silence, and she wondered that Lu Ten would stay with someone like her when everyone else had left.

They wandered for a long time until Lu Ten insisted that Azula sleep. "When was the last time you slept?" he asked, and Azula couldn't answer because she couldn't remember.

So she stretched on the ground, and she slept, until she heard someone whispering, I love you, I love you, I love you, in her ear, and she flinched awake. She was cold and sore and there was no one leaning over her, no hand caressing her cheek, no kisses to her forehead—just wisps of fog and the hollow voices of the ghosts and the cold mask over her face.

She climbed to her feet, and found Lu Ten lying on his back nearby, eyes closed as if in sleep. As if he needed to sleep when he was dead.

Was this how he had looked when he had died, she wondered, as she leaned over him. Wisps of dark hair strayed across his cheekbones, and she frowned.

How had he died? Had he been crushed by rocks? Pierced by an arrow? Choked by a bare hand?

She brought her own hand to her throat, felt the weak swell of it beneath her palm, the vulnerable yield as she pressed against her windpipe.

Lu Ten woke then, his eyes blinking sleepily. "What are you doing?" His words blurred together, as Azula swung away from him and stretched. She could hear the way the dirt gritted under the weight of her foot. She could hear the way her breath rasped in her throat, the way her belly pained for food.

Everything was too much, too loud.

Why couldn't her body be as silent and still and gone as her bending?

Her face settled into something familiar, something like the sneer she had once given to those who reached for her. "We need to leave. We've wasted enough time. We still need to find Mai and Ty Lee and then a way out of this place." Guilt hung heavy on her shoulders. She shouldn't have listened to Lu Ten and slept. How much time had they wasted? How long had she slept? It was impossible to tell in this light.

"Where will we start?" Lu Ten asked, easily. "We can barely see a few inches in front of us. I don't even know how big this valley is. What's your plan for finding your friends?"

"I'll call their names until they find me," Azula said. Perhaps, if she still had her firebending, she could have burned the fog away and just ran from person to person until she found them.

"They won't hear you. The fog thickens in your ears too."

"I heard you," Azula said sharply.

Lu Ten shrugged, then climbed to his feet. "Perhaps the spirit wanted us to meet. Or perhaps we just got lucky."

"You're not as optimistic as I remember you," Azula said as she picked a direction and strode forward.

"And you are not as I remember you," Lu Ten said.

Azula laughed merrily. "Then your memory is very bad because I have not changed at all."

"I don't think that's true."

He smiled when he said it, and Azula turned away from him, calling out for Mai and Ty Lee until her voice was hoarse.

* * *

 _Chapter title inspired by Avicii's Hey Brother_


	38. Bad Memories

"Mai." Ty Lee plucked at Mai's long sleeves insistently.

"What?"

"The thread—it's gone." She held the thread up. There was no tension. It had gone absolutely loose, like it wasn't tied to Azula anymore. Frantic, Ty Lee pulled at the lengths of it, and Mai refused to look, biting down instead on the vague flicker of disappointment she still managed to feel because she shouldn't be surprised.

Of course Azula would cut them loose. She didn't care about them.

Ty Lee's face was stricken as she found her way to the other end of the thread. It was ragged, like someone had ripped it which was exactly what Azula would do since she didn't have something sharp to do it for her. It wasn't as if she could just steal another one of Mai's knives, after all. She probably used her teeth.

"What are we going to do?" Ty Lee said.

Mai shrugged. "Walk."

"We need to find her," Ty Lee said, clutching to Mai again like she had all the answers. "Something could have happened to her. We could be her only hope!"

"She's fine," Mai said. "She's leaving us." Sighing, she shrugged out of Ty Lee's grasp, and looked at Ty Lee, exasperated. She wanted to ask Ty Lee why she kept pretending that this was going to turn out any different. Was she really that silly and naive? Mai knew she wasn't, but sometimes she didn't understand Ty Lee at all.

"No she hasn't!" The words burst from Ty Lee, ugly and angry, twisting her face so intently that Mai had to glance away.

"She has," Mai said.

"I'm going after her," Ty Lee said. "And you can follow me or do whatever you want. Like you always do!" The words came out in a rush, and Mai saw that Ty Lee was crying, though she was trying very hard not to do so.

Mai turned her back on Ty Lee, her gloved hands gripping her forearms so that she would not be swept aside by Ty Lee and the force of her accusations. But then Ty Lee was reaching for her hand, as if she could drag Mai across the divide of their disagreement to her side. "If we go after her into the fog, we'll just be as lost as her," Mai's voice was dull and flat, cutting Ty Lee off in the middle of whatever stupid thing she was about to say next. Maybe if she tried logic and reason, instead of something emotional, Ty Lee would listen. "If we're both moving, we'll never find each other—if she's there to be found. We should stay put."

Ty Lee shook her head, her braid swinging back and forth. "That is the stupidest thing I've heard! Even you're right, I don't care." She looked up at Mai. Her eyes were clear, her face smiling, and Mai wondered how she could shift so smoothly from mood to mood. "We need to find her because that is what friends do." Ty Lee's hands were heavy on her shoulders. "I understand—I don't know, I really don't know if following Azula into that soupy fog is the best idea, but I do know that we have to do this! What if she's the one that's lost, and she's the one that's sitting still?"

Mai sighed, her glance sliding away from Ty Lee, settling on a scrub of brush even as she tried to imagine Azula remaining still about anything. She wanted to tell Ty Lee not to go after her because if she did, she'd never be free of Azula. She'd always be target practice. Mai remembered the game they had played as kids, the burning apple on her head, the faint smell of burning hair before Zuko had crushed her into the fountain, getting her wet of cold.

She remembered how Ty Lee had giggled in her palms as she stood beside Azula, how she always stood beside Azula except for that one time. And even then—Ma sighed. "It's a bad idea."

"I promised to go with her," Ty Lee said. She drew herself up to her full height, still coming up short of Mai. "Doesn't my word have honor too?"

It stung, the hidden accusation. For a moment, Mai hated Ty Lee, and then she buried it where she hid all the other thoughts and feelings that made her skin shrivel and dry. "Fine."

"Thank you, thank you, thank you!" Ty Lee said, holding on to Mai, hugging her tightly, whispering her gratitude into her shiny black hair.

"Don't." Mai didn't hug her back.

Ty Lee stepped away, looking mildly abashed before dropping into the fog. Mai followed slowly after. The rock sprayed into grit and pebbles beneath her heels, and she heard Ty Lee cry out as one accidentally struck her.

Mai felt bad about that but there was nothing she could do as she fell faster and faster, rolling forward as she struck the ground. She rose to her feet, and jumped when Ty Lee gripped her elbow.

"We need to stay together," she whispered, threading her own fingers through Mai's.

Unable to see anything but the fog and the ghostly figures wandering within, Mai nodded, her throat dry as she tried to swallow away her fear.

"You're going to break my hand," Mai said, looking down at where Ty Lee had been gripping her tightly for what felt like hours.

"I don't want to lose you." Ty Lee looked up at her, her face pale and ashen, her eyes still wet with tears shed and unshed. "This is a place for the lost. I can feel it."

Mai sighed as she tried to look hopeful and optimistic—probably failing miserably. She was glad there was no mirror for her to see how she was the worst friend ever. "We need to figure out a way to get rid of this fog."

"It's a spirit," Ty Lee said. "I can tell. It's not going to go away unless we ask it to." Then suddenly her face brightened, and she dropped Mai's hand so she could clap her own. Mai pulled her arm to her chest, rubbing the ache away as Ty Lee skipped forward a few paces. "Please, spirit!" She bowed deeply towards it. "We are simply trying to find our friend. Will you please help us? She's about our age and our height. Her hair is long and dark. She might have the heir of a princess because that is who she is! She might also be a bit mean and cruel but please don't be bothered by all that—or if you are, let us know where she is and we'll take her away so that she won't bother you anymore!"

Mai rolled her eyes. This wasn't going to work. Nobody did anything for anybody just because they asked nicely and said please prettily. She went towards Ty Lee who was still babbling to the spirit, and stopped when the fog roiled thickly between them, completely hiding Ty Lee from sight.

Mai couldn't hear Ty Lee anymore either.

Something like fear curdled in her belly as Mai willed her eyes to be keener as she peered round and round, squinting into the fog. "Ty Lee?"

Her hand went to the old place where her knives should be. Her body still didn't remember that they weren't there, that Azula had let them rust at the bottom of the ocean. She flexed her hands against her thigh as she raised her head high, chin jutting forward as she followed Ty Lee's footsteps. Or what she thought were her footsteps. It was hard to be sure of anything in this place.

"What are you doing?" came a far too familiar voice, slick with malice and hard with cruelty.

"Rescuing my silly friend," Mai said. She stared out the corner of her eye, saw Azula in her regalia, no longer wearing the rag thin clothes she had been wearing earlier. A golden plume of fire graced her top-knot. "Aren't you bored pretending to be Azula when I know you're not her?"

The Azula in the fog shifted, dissipating and then solidifying terrifyingly close to Mai. She stopped short. The spirit looked real, but it wasn't Azula. It wasn't. Azula didn't wear her hair like that anymore. Azula was missing. But still, Mai wished she had her knives, even though they wouldn't have been able to cut through the fog.

"Why would you want to rescue her?" Azula sounded bored, and Mai wondered if she had always sounded like that or if one had copied the other. Then Azula smiled that sickening smile, the one that showed all her teeth. "Doesn't she deserve what she gets?"

"Because she's my friend," Mai said.

The spirit drifted so that she was behind Mai's shoulder, her breath cloyingly close to her ear. "She doesn't love you like she loves me. She'll always choose me because she wants to be me, just like you wanted to be me." She shifted until she was in front of Mai, her arms folded as she stared down at her. "Everybody wants to be me but nobody can."

A frown flickered for a moment over Mai's features before she schooled herself, before she forced herself to remain calm. "You're wrong." Ty Lee had already chosen Mai over Azula, or maybe she had only stopped Azula because she knew that Mai could have killed her, and she couldn't have that because she was so in love with her.

Mai hated herself for even thinking that as she brushed through Azula like she was mist. The spirit dissipated and reformed itself again in front of Mai. Laughing like Azula, the spirit pushed hard against Mai's chest, and she reeled backwards out of the fog and into the Fire Nation palace when she was still just a child.

It was before Azula had burned the apple on her head, and Zuko had sent them both tumbling into the fountain. It was when Mai had bumped into Azula because she had been too busy watching Zuko walking with his beautiful, kind mother. Mai had slipped, and fallen in the wet grass, and Azula's shadow stretched over her. "Maybe you should watch where you're going," Azula had said.

"I'll be more careful next time."

"You like him," Azula sing-songed as she saw that Mai was still watching Zuko. Her voice dropped into a loud whisper. "He likes you too."

Mai averted her gaze and ignored Azula, but Azula was impossible to ignore as she once more stepped in front of Mai. The grass smelled green as Azula crushed the blades beneath her feet.

"You know that nothing can come of this." Azula almost sounded sad, almost sounded as if she cared. She shifted so that she sat beside Mai, so that she too could watch Zuko and Ursa wander in the garden. Their gazes were parallel and they sat in silence.

Mai looked at her lap.

"He really is his mother's son, isn't he? Though he's supposed to be my father's heir," Azula said. "Sometimes I wonder if Zuko would make a strong Firelord. What do you think, Mai?"

"Whatever you say," Mai said, her voice sullen. She said it immediately, by rote, and it wasn't until the silence hung between them that Mai understood what Azula had said. Zuko could not be Firelord, unless Ozai were Firelord, which would not happen because when Azulon passed, Iroh would become Firelord, and then Azula's cousin after him. Mai stole a glance at Azula. But she stared only forward, watching Zuko and Ursa together. They were laughing and smiling. They were happy. Mai wondered what that felt like.

"I know that your parents are thrilled that we're friends," Azula said. "Why wouldn't they? I'm an excellent friend, and so is my father. It's very likely that when my father is Firelord, he could do good things for your father, maybe even letting him be the governor of an Earth Kingdom city if he proves himself. That would be very exciting for you and your family, wouldn't it?"

Mai swallowed, her body tensing like she needed to defend herself, but she was with her friend, the Princess Azula, and they were sitting in the grass under the lychee trees, and there were bees in the air. It was peaceful. There should have been do danger here. And never before had they discussed the political possibilities of their friendship because Mai had never taken advantage of it-she had never asked anything of Azula for her parents, ever.

"I'm going to tell you a secret, Mai," Azula said, her voice soft.

"I don't want your secrets." Mai kept her head down. She fidgeted with the grass, plucking blades of it and knotting them around her finger. "Keep them. Isn't that what you're always telling us?"

Azula's voice was in her ear. "But this is one that I want to give to you. Something that will make you very grateful that you're my friend. Because you see, Mai, one day I'm going to be Firelord." Mai's head jerked up, and she felt cold under the hot sun. First she had claimed that her father would be Firelord even though there was another before him, and now she was talking about taking his place even though Zuko was literally right there in front of her, eating lychee fruit, staining his fingers and his mouth. Sickness slithered through her.

"Zuko doesn't have to be out of the picture when I'm Firelord," Azula was saying. "But, if he's not the heir, he can marry whatever high ranking Fire Nation girl he wants." Azula met Mai's eyes and smiled. "Someone like you, perhaps, if your father continues his upward climb. Wouldn't you like that, Mai?"

Mai held herself very still as Azula rose to her feet, brushing bits of grass from her clothes. Her fingers curled in the dirt as Azula stared down at her, hands clasped behind her back. "Well?" she asked. "Doesn't the prospect I've described please you? Isn't it something you want to happen?" Her features turned cruel, as they so frequently did these days.

Mai nodded. "Of course, Princess Azula. It would make me very happy."

"You should meet up with Zuzu later," Azula said, as she turned away, leaving Mai in sunshine so bright she had to blink against it. "You should have fun together, if that's something you know how to do."

Then she was gone, and Mai was truly alone. She licked her dry lips and felt nauseous, sick to her stomach, as she rose unsteadily to her feet and found herself once more in the spirit world.

It had just been a memory, that was all, and Azula in her Firelord regalia was nowhere to be found.

She was just as alone now as she had been then. Zuko was just as far away now as he had been then.

Mai's lips twitched against her teeth as she stumbled through the fog with no sign of Ty Lee or Azula to guide her way.

Finally, limbs aching, she sat down and hid her face in her knees. She wondered if Zuko had heard what had happened and if he was on his way to help her, or if he would do the honorable thing and rule the nation.

It wouldn't be the first time he had left her behind for honor.

It was one of the things that she admired about him, that she loved about him.

At least, that's what she told herself as she shivered in the fog, rising only when she saw a pink light glimmering somewhere in the distance.


	39. Hey There, Sweet Sugar Cakes

"Won't you help us?" Ty Lee pleaded, her hands clasped together as she smiled at the fog entwined around the legs of all the wandering figures. "I don't know what these people are doing here, but I'm sure that we don't belong here. We need to return home to our families! Azula needs to restore her bending and her honor but after she's done doing that she'll want to see her brother again and her mom, if she's even alive. And then there's Suki too—I won't imagine that she's worried about us, but I'm sure that losing us on such an important mission would upset her. She's a leader, you see, she keeps her people safe and I'm her people now—at least I think I am." Ty Lee glanced down at her faded, travel stained garments. They weren't remotely similar to the Kyoshi garb she had warn before, but she assumed the Spirit world would be able to divine the truth of what she said. "And, how could I forget, Azula was on a very important mission to return ancient water bending scrolls to Katara. You can't just keep us here!" She stamped her foot to punctuate the urgency of their situation and waited for it to respond.

The fog did not answer. The spirit was silent and simply twined itself around her ankles for her troubles. Ty Lee sagged, her breath shallow in her throat, her shoulders hunched before she straightened and smoothed her clothes. She turned back towards Mai. "You were right! I hope you're happy! But I forgot—" she stood on tiptoes, fists clenched at her thighs—"you're never happy!" She rubbed her eyes with her knuckles, and waited for Mai to respond with her dismal, gloomy sighs but there was only silence.

Ty Lee glanced up, peered around. "Mai? Where are you?"

Her throat dried, and she swallowed uneasily through the thickening fog. They had lost each other. The thread had broken and she had released Mai's hand, expecting that Mai would keep her in sight and follow her. But of course Mai wouldn't go after her. She didn't go after anybody.

Well, except for Zuko.

Ty Lee chewed her lip, circling slowly until she was dizzy. She needed to lie down, but she shouldn't. She had to keep going. She had to find them!

But slowly her knees bent until she was on the cool ground. Her skin was flushed hot, her pulse a rapid skitter of beats scudding under her flesh.

Someone came towards her, and she saw the red boots striped with gold that Azula favored. Ty Lee's gaze followed the boots up towards the red swoops of cloth looped against her thighs and girdled at her waist, to her folded arms, to Azula's face peering down at her, with that cold sneer and those colder eyes.

It was the old Azula, not the new Azula that journeyed with them. This Azula's hair was perfectly in place. This Azula had no hint of weakness about her. This Azula had never cried, had never groveled on her knees.

This was the Azula that had burned the nets and caused the stampede. Ty Lee shrank from the Azula that towered over her.

"Stop this, Ty Lee, and get up." She bent at the waist, her neck graceful, her back a smooth curved line. "Don't make me drag you to your feet," Princess Azula said softly.

Ty Lee didn't need to be told twice. She didn't need to be told twice to do anything.

She scrambled to her feet, and when she found her balance, they were not in the fog, but in the palace, and she was alone with Azula, a different Azula than the one who had commanded her to stand.

This was after Prince Zuko had returned home, but before he had abandoned them again for the Avatar. It was before Ty Lee had struck Azula to stop her from hurting Mai.

Ty Lee remembered this day, even though she had tried so hard to forget it. They had been practicing their tumbling in the grass, and Ty Lee was still better at it than Azula, flitting and flighty in her rope-walking slippers, twisting in the air like it was more familiar to her than ground.

Azula struggled to follow after, and she missed her landing, falling to the ground with a dull thud that had made Ty Lee's heart scud against her chest because Azula was perfect—no one was supposed to be better than her.

Azula's legs were splayed in front of her, her knees slightly bent, and she made no move to get up. "Are you just going to stand there?" Azula had asked, as she leaned back on her elbows. "Or are you going to help me up?"

"No, Princess Azula," Ty Lee said as she hastened towards her. She wasn't like Mai. She didn't need to be told over and over. She knew the rules, she knew how to play whatever game Azula had in mind.

She held out her hand, and Azula waited a few moments before she took it. But instead of allowing herself to be pulled to her feet, she wrenched Ty Lee down so she tumbled into Azula's lap, falling against her thighs and between her spread knees. Ty Lee used her arms to brace herself against the ground, so she would not touch Azula with her weight.

Her limbs framed Azula's torso so closely she could feel the soft fabric whispering against her skin, and when she lifted her face to gasp out an apology for being so clumsy, the words died on her lips to see Azula so close to her. Her hair had come loose during their exertions, and it framed her face softly. She was so beautiful-she was always so beautiful, no matter how cruel she became.

Ty Lee made to pull away, but Azula pressed her knees around her rib cage, and she stilled herself.

Azula pulled at Ty Lee's braid, letting it run through her fingers as if she were examining each plait. "Hmmm," she said as she let her legs relax so she was no longer holding Ty Lee in place.

"What is it, Princess Azula?" Ty Lee said, still holding herself so that Azula would not have to bear her weight, so that they would not touch. She knew that if she tried to extricate herself that Azula would only catch her again. She could not stand until Azula let her.

Azula twined Ty Lee's braid around her wrist. "What am I to you?"

Ty Lee found it difficult to think this close to Azula, who always possessed a commanding presence even when she was sitting on the grass after what she would describe as a humiliating defeat. And she wasn't sure what Azula was to her now that their school days were over. They had done so much together, with Azula at their head, Mai and Ty Lee flanking her, continuing to prop her up as they dominated the school yard. But sometimes, it was like Azula wasn't always that person, as if there was a girl who was just as young as them hidden somewhere deep inside. There were times, like now, that Ty Lee thought she could tease her out of that hiding place, and Ty Lee felt she would never love a girl as hard as she loved Azula, that part of her she kept so carefully hidden. "I think that you're the most beautiful, smartest, perfect girl in the world." She eyed the way that Azula was still playing with her braid—how she could have pulled until it hurt, and how she didn't.

"You're right about that," Azula said as she stopped winding the braid around her wrist. She played with the lengths of it, and Ty Lee imagined, for a moment, sitting in the same chair that Azula used, the water running through her hair, unbound, and Azula combing it through the water with the golden royal combs. Her cheeks flushed bright red at the very thought.

Presumptuous of her, so presumptuous. That would never happen. Shame burned through her for even thinking of it. And yet—she looked up under her eyelashes at Azula's delicate wrist and her long fingers and she imagined them holding the comb even as Azula unwound her long braid from her wrist and began to unbraid Ty Lee's hair with the same nimble fingers that shot blue fire and sparked bright lightening.

Ty Lee's arms trembled as she struggled to hold herself from Azula.

Azula noticed. "Are you comfortable?" Her fingers caught on a snarl, seeming not to notice that they were almost touching, that Ty Lee's strength was truly being tested, and that when she could hold herself no longer, she would collapse right into Azula, bearing them both to the ground, possibly knocking the breath out of the Princess, and there would be nothing she could do to catch Azula or herself.

Ty Lee nodded, and Azula smiled at the lie. "I thought so."

The muscles in Ty Lee's arms and shoulders burned at the effort to keep herself from falling into Azula, and sweat pricked her skin as Azula worked to unbraid her hair until she reached the band of pink that pulled her hair to the crown of her head. Then she undid that too so that Ty Lee's hair flowed free and unbound over her shoulders and spilled into the small space between them.

Azula ran her fingers through Ty Lee's hair, her fingernails scraping at Ty Lee's scalp, and Ty Lee closed her eyes as Azula whispered, "You do have lovely hair, don't you, Ty Lee?"

"Not like yours," Ty Lee said, her words shaking with the effort of holding herself from the princess. She knew that Azula smiled though she could not see it. "Azula—Princess," she gasped, the words coming out hard and grated.

"Are you tired, Ty Lee?" Azula asked. She stopped playing with Ty Lee hair's and stretched against the grass, raising her arms, tucking her clasped hands underneath her head to cushion herself against the hard ground. She shifted her legs so that they were under Ty Lee, so that her belly was framed between Ty Lee's trembling, shuddering arms.

A soft breeze scented with firelilies blew Ty Lee's hair into her mouth, and Azula reached out to pull the strands from her dry, chapped lips, to tuck them safe behind her ear. Her hand stayed for a moment, her fingers lingering in her hair like a hesitant caress. "I'm not tired," Ty Lee said.

"It's okay if you are," Azula said. She removed her hand, and put it back with the other to support her own head. "You've certainly proven your strength and skill to me."

Ty Lee made to rise to her feet, but Azula said, "You don't have to if you don't want to."

Ty Lee's mind raced. This was different than being pushed down in front of Mai. She was changing the rules. Azula was always cheating, but Ty Lee was quick and sly and she could slip between whatever new rules Azula made up. She met Azula's gaze and shifted so that her knees would bear her weight instead of her tired arms but Azula moved quickly, striking Ty Lee's knee with her own so that Ty Lee pitched forward.

Gasping for breath, Ty Lee fell against Azula hard enough that Azula gasped, and they were both very still for a moment, until Ty Lee tried to apologize, tried to rise to her feet, but Azula put her hand against her forehead, pressing her down so that she was pillowed against her stomach.

Ty Lee held very still as she breathed in tandem with Azula, her hair spilled out all around them, Azula's fingers playing there against her scalp, and Ty Lee realized this was probably the closest she would ever be to Azula, and the thought made her breath catch.

Ty Lee raised her eyes upwards, against the pressure of Azula's hand, and Azula gazed down at her, a smile curved around her mouth. "You're so clumsy sometimes, Ty Lee. But I don't mind, because this is so nice. Isn't this nice?" Azula asked. Ty Lee could only nod because it was so much more than nice-it was something stolen, something treasured.

They stayed together like that for a very long time, until they both grew drowsy in the afternoon warmth. Azula's hand stilled in Ty Lee's hair, and Ty Lee glanced up to see that her eyes were closed. She looked so peaceful like that, as if she were no longer troubled, as if she were happy. There was so much that Ty Lee wanted to do-to raise herself on her hands so she could gaze down at Azula's face, so she could kiss her forehead as her eyes fluttered open, so she could kiss her mouth if Azula allowed it. But she could not move from under the light weight of Azula's hand, and that was enough, too, because it was more than Ty Lee thought Azula would ever give her. Ty Lee never wanted this time together to end, and in that moment, glazed in sunlight, she imagined it never would. But then they heard Zuko's feet pounding through the garden paths, and Azula pushed Ty Lee away so hard she was back in the fog, crying out against the spirit and the memories it had shown her.

She fell back to her knees, her arms clenched around her belly as she rocked back and forth. Her long braid fell over her shoulder and she pulled it with her hand until it hurt, because she knew that a moment like that would never happen again, and that it was a lie that had meant nothing because Azula always lied and she manipulated and she used. Only a short time afterwards, Azula had looked at Ty Lee with so much hate, so much rage, and ordered that they be put away so she would never have to see their faces again. Ty Lee's face-the face she had touched and smiled upon and gazed at like there could have been something between them.

And yet—Ty Lee squeezed her eyes shut.

Mai would call her a stupid girl if she were here, and for a moment, Ty Lee was grateful that she was not, that she could not see this moment, that she had not been there to see what had transpired between the two of them not so long ago.

And maybe she was stupid for wanting this back again, for wanting something from Azula that she would never be able to give her, and that Ty Lee wasn't even sure she could accept after what had happened at the Boiling Rock.

But she couldn't stop thinking about it. She couldn't stop remembering how it had felt, to be so close to Azula as they relaxed in the grass without toppling empires or hunting lost brothers-when it had just been them alone. She couldn't stop remembering how she had fled when Azula told her she needed to go, how she had re-braided her with shaking hands, and how Azula hadn't said anything about what had happened, like it had never happened, like it was Ty Lee's imagination.

And maybe it was her imagination that it had meant something to them both instead of just to her.

"You stupid girl," she whispered to herself.

Maybe Mai was right-the Azula Ty Lee thought had been hiding had never existed. It was just an act, an act for Ty Lee perhaps, but an act nonetheless.

She had fallen for it, and she was still falling for it, even now. There would be no net, there never was, and Mai would be right again: she would just end up getting hurt.

But Ty Lee couldn't stay here in the fog, thinking about this. No matter how she felt about Azula, personally, she knew that she couldn't leave her in the fog. It wouldn't be the right thing to do, and even if it wasn't a right thing or a wrong thing to leave her behind, Ty Lee would try to find her anyway because Azula meant something to her. She always would, no matter what.

She would always be in love with her, Ty Lee realized. She just had to give up hope that Azula would love her back one day. She could do that, eventually. She didn't need someone to love her back. So she forced herself to her feet and, staggering, she called out the names of the friends whom the fog had taken from her.


	40. Treasonous Things

They walked, and Azula tired of walking. She tired of looking at Lu Ten's back, his squared off shoulders that still looked more like a soldier than anything else about him.

She scowled at him, behind her mask where he couldn't see and ask what was wrong, even though the whole world knew something was wrong with her.

She was a monster, after all. Everyone said so.

"How do you feel about fathers?" Lu Ten asked without looking over his shoulder as they kept wandering through the tiresome fog.

"I'm sure I don't know what you mean," Azula said. "You might want to explain it to me."

"You said that you had no more need of brothers, but what of fathers?" And this time Lu Ten stopped and turned to face her.

Azula did not spare a single glance but kept walking, their shoulders brushing as she pushed past him. "I already have a father. I'm not like Zuko. I don't need a second one."

She could hear Lu Ten following her. "We heard stories in the army about Ozai, before he became the Firelord."

"Obviously it was before he became Firelord if you heard about it. The rabble do love to talk," Azula said, barely listening, barely paying attention.

"They said he treated his family shamefully," Lu Ten said. "They whispered this in secret, of course. They had no wish to risk their own family. Not that I blame them."

Azula kept walking, but she was remembering the way her father's hand had slipped up her mother's sleeve. She remembered the way her father had advanced on Zuko, bowed to the floor, and his sobbing face. Father had not been moved of course. He was a monster, just like she was.

"I respected my father," Azula said, because it was true. Maybe she had even loved him though he had left her behind, even though he had treated her like Zuko. She closed her eyes. She heard his voice: fear is the only way.

"But did he love you?" Lu Ten asked as he caught up with her, their shoulders brushing again as he passed.

Azula jerked away from him, refused to look at the way he raised his eyes to her, waiting for her to say something that affirmed or denied. She swallowed around the way her throat swelled into a barren desert.

"My father would love you as his own," Lu Ten said, swaggering from her, so confident in his family, in his father, in his uncle.

Azula laughed at that. She couldn't help it. "I hate to disappoint you, cousin, but your father hates me. He takes after my mother in that way. He always thought I was a monster, and he's not wrong. He's always saying I'm crazy and that I need to go down, and he doesn't even know about my hallucinations-that I see Mom, and she says things to me that aren't real. He'd probably have plenty to say about those." She paused, smoothing the ragged ends of her hair as she stared at Lu Ten through the blue spirit mask. "And your father did get his wish: I went down, hard. I lost my father, my throne, my bending. You think he'd be happier about that, but he's still very grumpy with me, like he'd prefer if I had died or disappeared or something like that, leaving Zuko to be the only child." She pretended to inspect her fingernails as if she didn't have a care in the world. They were short and dirty and she hid her hands behind her back. "Ironic, really, as I had wished that for myself the longest time."

Lu Ten's face tightened, paled in the mellow light of the spirit world. "I don't believe you. My father loves everything. He never gives up hope. He always gives people second chances."

"Well, he didn't even try before giving up on me." Azula shrugged, dramatically, her voice sliding through the curved grin of the mask. "According to him, I was a lost cause since I was six, maybe younger."

Lu Ten caught her elbow, his grip hard and firm. Azula wrenched herself out of it, and continued through the twisting, curling, treacherous fog. She still looked for Mai and Ty Lee even though they should have left when they realized the thread had broken. She wondered how she was going to meet up with them once she found the way out.

And that was assuming they just hadn't left her here to rot.

"Why do you say that he gave up on you?" Lu Ten said.

"Because it's true." She yawned behind her mask, and she put her hand in front of its carven mouth. "If you want to know the story, I'll tell you. I wanted Uncle Iroh dead. I wanted you dead. I wanted my brother dead. I wanted my mother dead. What a horrible person I am. Of course your uncle would bear no love for me."

"Did you really wish me dead?" he asked in a very small voice, as if they had once been friends a long time ago.

Azula resumed walking even though she had begun to suspect they were wandering in circles. "You shouldn't be surprised, cousin. As you can see, it wasn't as if it was personal."

"I'm not surprised," Lu Ten said. "I'm just sad."

"Don't be sad on my account. Your father overheard me speaking my terrible thoughts when he returned after your death. I don't believe he's ever forgiven me—though I tried to explain. I just thought it would be the only way."

Speaking of that day made her remember how the grass had itched at her belly, how she had rolled over on her back, and stared into the sun, soaking up its warmth, until her vision blurred and she had closed her eyes. As she had knuckled the sun-bleed away, she had seen Zuko, by the turtle-duck pond, and she remembered how he had sat there with mom so often. She had often wondered what they had spoken about as she watched them, always too far away to hear their words but close enough to hear their laughter.

Mom had never laughed with her.

Lu Ten's voice tugged her from the past. "I just can't believe you really wanted me to die. You were just a kid. You didn't know what you were saying."

The souls crowded them. Too many faces and, even though she was hidden behind her blue mask, Azula found herself shrinking away. "I knew perfectly well what I was saying. I had known for a long time that my father would not be happy unless he sat the throne. How else was he going to get it unless either you or Iroh died?"

Lu Ten looked at her.

"Don't look at me like that," Azula said. "You're making such a big deal out of it, like I betrayed you in some way. We weren't even friends when you left."

"Did you mourn me?" Lu Ten said.

"No." Azula picked her way forward. "I didn't mourn Grandpa either after what happened. You have to understand Lu Ten, your death was followed very quickly by grandfather Azulon ordering my father to kill Zuko, so that he would also know the same pain as Uncle Iroh. And then, after that, grandfather Azulon also died. It was so unexpected, considering his excellent health." Her voice twisted. "But I didn't mourn, because I was glad that Father finally had what he wanted, and that meant good things for us, until Zuko ruined everything." That wasn't true, she knew. Father had been the one to send Zuko away. Father had been the one that allowed Zuko to be swayed by his uncle. Father had been the one to drive Zuko away again. Father was the one who had left her behind. It was his fault, but Zuko had been the one to blame for so long that the lie came easy to her. It had always been easier to blame Zuko for his exile. The walls didn't protest or try to explain when she stood in the middle of his empty room and said exactly what she thought of him. He hadn't been there to be angry with her because he was always gone. Gone with Mom, gone with Uncle Iroh, gone with the Avatar. Azula shook her head behind the mask. It didn't matter whose fault any of it was. "Be honest—if our roles were switched, you wouldn't have mourned me either."

His face fell. "I suppose that's true—but only because I would not have known you. We weren't friends, as you said."

Azula shrugged, and called out for Mai and Ty Lee to fill the empty space, but of course no one answered because Ty Lee loved Mai best, and Mai loved Zuko best, and Mom had loved Zuko best too, and Father had loved himself best of all. Of course there would be no one to answer her as she wandered with the dead.

She wondered why Katara had not let her die when she had had the chance. It would have been easy. Encase her in ice a little longer. Bend water into her lungs and drown her.

Azula supposed Katara already had drowned her, in her own way. She'd filled Azula so full of water that she could not bend fire. That's all she was now: a walking water-logged corpse leaking out her eyes.

It was easy to just sit down in the middle of the valley. Lu Ten turned back, and sat in front of her. She bent at the waist so her head rested in the cradle of her dirty boots so she would not have to look at him.

Not even the mask she wore was thick enough to shield herself from him or from the vision of her mother, lingering nearly out of sight. She wore her regal robes, the flame of the fire lady in her hair, and she was so beautiful.

"Don't," she murmured as exhaustion took her, and she fell asleep.

She woke with the mask still tied to her face. She woke pained with the tediousness of travel. She woke with Ty Lee's name on her lips, and Mai's close behind.

"Are they here?" she asked Lu Ten because there was no one else to ask.

"I don't know," he said, his voice gentle and soft and all the things she hated, all the things that made someone weak, made her weak. "How would I know for I am with you, am I not? For the first time in a long time, I am with my family."

Much good that did for either of them.

She fell asleep again and when she woke up, she was in the palace, so she knew it was a memory and nothing more. It was easy to slip into the past, and Azula knew it was because of the fog, because of the spirit that kept them trapped in their memories, and their fears.

But the spirit would have to try very hard to keep her trapped. She had no fear because her greatest fears had already come to pass. And as for bad memories, she could handle those as wells.

"Do your worst," she called out to the spirit, though her words and voice were lost in the coiling fog.

As the fog thickened, the memory grew clearer, and she was sneaking through the palace seeking Zuko. It was the darkest and the coldest time of the morning, when it was still night and the promise of dawn seemed far off and false.

Her hand still hurt from when Ursa had gripped her tight, dragging her from Zuko's room so that she might pry the information Azula knew about Azulon's plans for Zuko. Then she had asked a favor, and Azula had thrilled that her mother would need something from her for once, after telling her that she was wrong after all this time.

Then there was the knife she had stolen, that fit her hand so well and so comfortably. She had been weak when she had allowed Zuko to take it from her, like he had taken so many other things from her.

The memory faded and rippled and she was with Ty Lee and her long braid, her bright eyes, her nimble feet. She could not place where they were. Maybe school or the palace. She called for Ty Lee, and Ty Lee said, "I'm here."

She was close beside Azula, and her breath smelled of pomegranates as she whispered against Azula's mouth, and Azula did not bid her to leave, to depart, to go away and never be seen again.

But Ty Lee left anyway, dissipating like the desert mirages.

Azula cried out for Ty Lee again as she pressed her hand to the hollow spaces between her ribs, finding the places that Ty Lee had struck so she could not bend.

From very far away, she could hear Lu Ten, if only barely. "Why do you cry for her so? Do you love her?"

"Love is for fools," she said dully, the words coming up her throat as obedient as any well trained thing.

She had said the same thing to her mother, and she remembered the last time she had seen her. Her mother changed much that night, so much so that Azula had barely recognized her at the end. There was her mother's soft face, the way her dark hair framed her face, the way she smelled of jasmine. Those things she recognized.

She recognized the look of frustration as Azula eagerly told her tale because she had only first told Zuko to torment him, to remind him that he wasn't wanted-not like she was. She still remembered how her mother had confided in secret that she had never wanted a second child, and now here was Zuko, wielded as a tool of punishment instead of a son.

And she had recognized how Mom had loved Zuko so much more than Azula, more than she loved her husband, and more than she loved the Fire Nation.

What Azula hadn't recognized was the way her eyes had turned so cold, her mouth so hard as she made plans to save Zuko's life. He should have been there, fighting for his life instead of letting everybody else do it for him.

"Azulon ordered this?" Ursa had asked of her, hand gripped around Azula's wrist.

Azula nodded. "I saw it myself." She had seen other things too. Had seen her father brought to his knees, had seen how Azulon's fire touched her father too. That would never happen again once he was the Firelord seated on the fire-rimmed platform. He would be the one to whom people bowed. But she told her mother nothing of those things.

"And you did nothing?"

Azula shrugged. "I'm warning you, aren't I?"

"Only because you were caught!"

Her mother sounded angry, and Azula said nothing.

"Do you really care so little for your brother?"

"Why should I care when you already care so much for him?" Azula said. "You care more than enough for the both of us, I think."

Her mother paced the room, corkscrewing tight circles into the carpet as she hid her hands in her sleeves. "The Firelord does not normally take visitors this time of night," she said softly. "This must be stopped, but we have no time."

Azula waited for her mother to dismiss her, to tell her to go, but she did not. Azula watched until her mother stopped her pacing and looked at Azula the same way she had seen herself looking at her friends. The way her gaze leveled out, the way she crept gently towards her, the way she positioned herself at her side so she could run a hand through her beautiful hair, pretending to like her, to care for her.

Azula had done all this and more to Mai and Ty Lee so they'd want to go along with whatever she said, instead of just doing it because she said so or because they were afraid of her. Not that she minded the fear, but it was better when they wanted what she wanted too.

"He would see you, though," Ursa said as she refastened the ribbon in Azula's hair so that it was neat and tidy, fresh and new. "You were well named, my love."

Azula held very still, the ghost of her mother's fingers still lingering in her skin. A shiver crept over her when her mother pulled briefly away.

"You impressed him today." Her mother knelt so that she did not look down on her. Her hands played with the hair fringing Azula's face. "I was so proud of you today, did you know?'

Azula's eyes widened before narrowing in suspicion. "You said you were proud of Zuko when he embarrassed us all! I heard you!" She tried to tug away, but Ursa caught her by the wrist, gently this time, and guided Azula to stand once more before her.

"I'm proud of both of you because you are both my children." She pressed a kiss to Azula's forehead. "I love you, Azula. Don't you know?"

Azula glared at her. "What do you want from me?"

Her mother stood. "I want you to perform for him, and I want you to impress him with something very special, and make him very, very proud."

Azula couldn't help but smile. "And what will you do?"

"I will make him tea," she said. "Ginseng, his favorite."

"He'd like that," Azula said.

Her mother smiled, but it was a smile that Azula didn't recognize, one she had not seen before. "I know."

Ursa prepared the tea while Azula thought about what she would show Azulon. She had asked for something special, and perhaps now was as good a time as any to show her blue hearted flame. One day, it would be blue all the way through, she knew.

Once Ursa was ready, she held Azula by the hand as they walked to Ozai's chambers. They whispered for a long time before Ozai nodded, and then he too accompanied them to Grandfather Azulon's quarters.

Grandfather was not pleased to see them, and was about to turn them away, until Azula pleaded so prettily to show him something special, something no firebender had ever done before. He relented, and Ursa poured the tea as Azula began her set.

Azula saw him cradle the warm cup in his palms. She watched him take many sips. He almost smiled when he told Ursa that he loved the way she made his tea—just the way he liked it.

And then, right in the middle of the most complex set Azula knew, when the flame flickered with its blue heart, Azulon fell from his chair, clutching at his heart, gasping for breath.

Ursa and Ozai rushed to him, their hands fluttering at him as if they would do something to help even as they did absolutely nothing.

Azula followed, wondering if he had seen her blue fire before he died at their feet.

The servants came rushing in, and in that moment, she heard her mother say that Firelord Azulon had named Ozai as his successor with his dying words, even though he had said no such thing-had only gasped and choked. They had lied, and Azula stepped back, startled that her mother had been the one to make her father Firelord, after telling her so many times that it was a bad thing to want, to desire. Her hands clammed as they clenched into fists, and she watched her grandfather lay very still on the floor, tea pooling from his open mouth.

Ursa realized that Azula was looking, and she took her hand, covered her eyes behind her palm, and hurried her down the corridor. "Don't look," she said, " don't look—" but Azula pushed her hand away to look some more, to crane her neck around to see the way the body was crumpled on the floor, the cup split in pieces from where it had dropped, and the growing stains on the red carpet.

Her mother dragged her behind the curtains, squeezing her hands in an iron grip as she knelt once more to look at her.

There was something wrong with her, Azula thought. There was something wrong with the way her skin was sick and cold and wet. There was something wrong with the way her hands shook as she went to smooth the fringe of hair that framed Azula's face. There was something wrong with the way she spoke. "You did such a good job, Azula! I loved watching you." Tears slipped from Ursa's eyes. "I'm so sorry you had to see that—it wasn't supposed to end this way." Ursa patted her cheek, which she had never done before. "Sleep, and in the morning, everything will be alright, I promise."

Azula smiled up at her. "Of course, it will." Her voice turned sly. "Didn't you hear what Grandfather said, right before he died? We have everything we could ever want now."

Her mother's face went even paler, and she rose so she could gently push Azula towards her own room. "Sleep, Azula."

Azula didn't go to her room first. First she went to Zuko's, and then she went to hers. She sat on the broad bed, with her clothes and shoes still on, replaying the scene in her head as she twirled Zuko's knife through her fingers, over and over, until she had it figured out.

She wasn't a stupid girl, not like her mother thought she was. Of course she knew why her mother had taken a sudden interest in her bending and showing it off towards her grandfather. Of course she knew that her mother needed her to distract her grandfather so he wouldn't suspect a thing about the tea, so that he would be too blinded by Azula to notice the treachery taking place in the shadows.

Azula wondered how her mother had kept such a steady hand as she offered the poisoned tea to Azulon.

She wished, suddenly, petulantly, that her mother had told her about the poison instead of pretending that Azula wouldn't know, wouldn't have figured it out. She wondered how her mother had come to know such things, and if she had ever intended to teach her what she knew. She wondered how her mother must have felt as she calmly waited for the tea to take its effect as she watched Azula walk through fire.

It had to be Mom who had done it because Father would never be accepted if the Nation ever found out. She was able to do it because she loved Zuko more than she loved Ozai, more than she loved her family, more than she loved her title, more than she loved anyone or anything—enough that even if she were never to see any of them again, it still would have been worth it.

Azula fumbled for a pillow smelling of stale lavender and pressed it against her face. She screamed into its soft depths, the thickness muffling the sound so that none could hear her, and none would know what she had done.

She must have fallen asleep after that because when she woke there was the dull promise of dawn seeping through the curtains. Lightly, like she had seen Ty Lee do, she dropped to the floor, soft and stealthy as she slipped down the halls toward Zuko's room, clutching his knife in her sweating hands. She did not see her mother taking her tea in her chambers as was her habit. Azula was not surprised by this.

Out of the window, she saw her father by the turtle-duck pond, and she went after him. "Where is she?" she asked.

"Why do you bother me with this?" he asked in turn with his hands clasped behind his back. "You know your mother will not be returning. You know what we did last night."

Azula feigned ignorance. "I don't understand," she said. "I'm only a little girl. I was showing off for Grandpa, and then he fell down and didn't get up again. And now Mom is gone too, and I don't know where!" She began to fret, summoning up the tears that once would have fooled him.

Finally, her father deigned to look upon her. "You're embarrassing yourself, Azula. You know what happened last night. You know your part, and you know the punishment for treachery. You know what has happened to your mother. Now run along, and leave me in peace."

She scowled at him as he turned his back on her. Was this her thanks? But perhaps it was just so much to take in—perhaps he would thank her properly when it wasn't so new and so raw and so terrible. Then he would tell her everything that had happened after Mom had sent her away.

She returned to the palace and flipped Zuko's knife as she lurked in the shadows. She thought about how much Mai would like this knife. She slashed the air, and hid herself when she heard Zuko come running down the halls, calling and crying for Mom.

She stepped in front of him, startling him only a little bit. "Last night, Grandpa passed away."

"Not funny, Azula. You're sick. And I want my knife back now."

He was right about one thing, she thought, as he tried to take the knife from her, just like he tried to make her feel small and guilty and sick of all the things she'd done.

It wasn't funny.

"Who's going to make me?' she asked, voice thick with the taunt of it, the empty promise of it, the threat of it. "Mom?" But she was gone, and she was never going to come back and tell Azula all the things she wanted to know, and in that moment of stillness, Zuko took the knife and ran from her, and she followed him, but she tripped over her feet in the fog of lost souls, and it wrenched her from the memory.

She fell to her knees, her hands catching her so badly the joints jarred and pained her horribly.

Lu Ten reached down to help her up, and she jerked away from him again. He squatted beside her, his wrists dangling from his knees, as he watched her silently.

"Don't look at me." Her voice was thick and sullen. She could feel his gaze on her as steady and unyielding as Zuko's and Katara's stares after they had defeated her, chained her to her knees to a grate.

"I saw your memories in the fog," Lu Ten said.

When she glanced up at him through the slits in her mask, she saw that he wasn't looking at her, but somewhere else, somewhere vague and far off, something for his eyes and his alone.

"I know that I'm a monster," Azula said abruptly. "Please tell me something I don't know."

"That's not what I was going to say," Lu Ten said. "I was going to say that your parents shouldn't have asked you to do what you did. They should have left you out of it."

Azula sniffed at him, and did not respond. Of course they should have asked her. She was the only one that could have granted them an audience before Ozai would need to kill Zuko. Who else were they going to ask?

Lu Ten, when he saw that she was not going to be getting up, laid down beside her, stretching to his full length as he cushioned his head on his palms. He looked like he should have been relaxing on a beach instead of trapped here in this ghastly place.

"Did anybody ever tell you how I died?" Lu Ten asked. A shadow passed over his face, and Azula shook her head.

"It was quite quick," he said. "A rock fell on my head and that was it. Not very noble. Not very daring. Bad luck, really. I was so angry at my father for the longest time. He led the armies, but didn't pay the price."

Azula rolled her eyes. "Leaders aren't supposed to be on the front lines. How are they going to lead if they only see what's in front of them?"

Lu Ten laughed. "I see your point but all I could think about were the friends who had gone before me. I grieved for them so much until I couldn't grieve anymore. When reports of another death came I only nodded and shined my boots and sharpened my sword, knowing I would never see them again even though we had to keep going on, even though we had to keep trying to survive. And then, I was that poor soldier boy who did not come marching home, and I was so angry because I wanted to come home. I wanted to see my family again. I wanted to see Aunt Ursa and my cousins again." He looked at her before his eyes drifted again to the horizon that lingered on the edge of the fog.

"If you keep going you might make me cry," Azula said drily.

"I was so angry," he said as if he hadn't heard her. "I wanted to ask my father how he could do that to me. How he could use me as canon fodder. Was I just some weapon for them to use as they pleased, or was I their son?"

"You should have this conversation with Zuko instead of me," Azula said. "You want to know why Zuko was burned, why my father challenged him to an agni kai when he was just a boy? Because Zuko spoke out against sacrificing a cohort of new soldiers who barely knew what they were doing." She scoffed as she shook her head. "They knew what they became when they joined the army. It was their choice to join."

"Perhaps," Lu Ten said. "But what does it mean when they march us off to wars we can't win, march us off to wars where we shouldn't win?"

Like being sent off to find an Avatar who probably didn't exist, or to fetch home a wayward son? "It's funny that you're only saying all this now. You know it was your father who marched you off to war. You want to pretend that he's any different than my father but he's not. They're the same. They both sent us away."

"My father isn't like that anymore," Lu Ten said.

"You don't even know him. You've been dead for too long." She drew her legs against her chest, hugging her shins. Her blue-masked cheek rested against her knees, and she wondered if her father was in the Earth Kingdom yet, waiting judgment.

Maybe she would never see him again.

Was she orphaned?

She was being pathetic and stupid, so she scrambled to her feet. "We need to find the way out so we can get Mai and Ty Lee out of here," she said.

Lu Ten looked up at her with his lazy eyes. They were his father's eyes. "Why don't you just signal to them with a jet of fire or something? They wouldn't be able to miss that."

"Because I can't," Azula said. "I've lost my bending. Haven't you been listening?"

Lu Ten got to his feet, smooth and graceful like he wasn't dead, and peered into the fog. "We could try to keep shouting their names, I suppose. But it hasn't done much good. Come on," he said, "try to bend."

"I think I'd know if it had come back," Azula said. "I knew when it had left me, after all."

"Just try," Lu Ten said. He reached for her, untying her mask and pressing his thumb against her forehead. "You didn't even know you had this, I expect. I've been watching it grow under that silly mask of yours for the past few days."

"What are you talking about?"

Lu Ten drew his sword and held the bright blade in front of her. She leaned towards it so she could better see her reflection. There was a tattooed eye rising red and high in the center of her brow. Wisps of hair blew across it even though there was no wind.

Her mouth twisted. "What is this?" she asked. She tried to rub it off, but it stayed and her hand came away clean. "I didn't get this on my own."

"Perhaps you have always had it," Lu Ten said, sheathing his sword again, "and it is only becoming apparent in the spirit world. Or perhaps you grew it when you lost your face. Stranger things have happened here, after all."

She patted her fingers against her skin where the eye had grown. She couldn't even feel it. It was just her skin, but not anymore.

"Surely you recognize it," Lu Ten said, very patiently.

"Of course, I recognize what it is. It's what the combustion benders use to focus their bending," Azula said. "But, as I've said before, I can't bend, and I've never been able to combustion bend. Not that I would want to. They have no control. They're sloppy and careless."

"Just try." Lu Ten looked at her encouragingly. "What's the worst that could happen?"

"I could blow myself up," Azula said, but even so she was falling into the familiar stance that had once come so easily to her, breathing deeply so that her breath would power whatever fire she found.

Nothing happened, just like always.

"I told you so," she said, the familiar sneer coming to her lips as she brushed past him.

"Azula, wait!" Lu Ten called.

So she waited, and he came to stand beside her, resting his hands on her shoulders and rotating her so she faced the direction in which he pointed.

"Isn't that a flash of pink?"


	41. It's Not Easy Being Good

Azula didn't hesitate. She sprinted past Lu Ten toward that smudge of color in the dull greyness of the fog, and he grabbed onto her wrist as she swept past him. They clung to each other's hands so that they would not become separated, and kept their eyes fixed on the bright spot of pink.

The color rose, higher, as if it were drifting upwards, and Azula redoubled her pace. As they approached, she saw the vague, shadowy outlines of a tree and she knew that it had to be Ty Lee, that she had to be climbing it, like some kind of firefly.

Ty Lee should have stayed on the edge. She should have walked the other direction. She shouldn't have come down here.

They stopped at the base of the tree. Azula leaned against her knees, panting, but Lu Ten was unaffected because he was dead. He shaded his eyes and peered upwards.

"She's very high," he said. "The tree won't be able to support her weight for much longer."

"If I call out to her I might distract her, and she will fall anyway," Azula said, joining Lu Ten, mirroring him as she looked upwards. "What is she doing!"

She looked at the tree. It was thick, gnarled. Old. She put her hand on the trunk, fingers finding the crevices in the bark. It crumbled in her hand, gritting into her skin, and she scowled at her palm as she wiped herself clean on her trousers. She could climb it though—even if it was disgusting to the touch. Even if it would tear her hand open.

"Don't even think about it," Lu Ten said. "What are you going to do but make it even harder for the both of you to get down."

"You don't know what I'm thinking," Azula snapped as she paced around the tree. The ground was hard and rocky. If Ty Lee were to fall, it would hurt or worse.

"Who are you?" came a voice from the fog, and Azula froze as she recognized Mai.

"I'm Lu Ten," he said.

Azula stayed hidden behind the tree.

"I once knew a cousin named Lu Ten," Mai said. "He wasn't my cousin. Just a cousin of someone I knew. He's dead too, like you."

"That's...interesting," Lu Ten said.

"Were you also drawn here by her?" Mai asked. "Ty Lee's not really wearing pink. Her clothes are just as drab as mine. But I guess she really does have an aura, and I guess it really is pink. But I'm concerned that other spirits will see. You don't look dangerous, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything."

"Oh he's fine," Azula said, coming out from under the tree. "Since you forgot to introduce yourself to Lu Ten, this is Mai."

Mai did look the worse for wear as she looked up at Azula under the shiny black fringe of her hair. "Of course you would be here."

Azula held up her hand where her broken thread was still wound tightly around her finger. "Unfortunately, it snapped during an altercation I had with one of the people here. I've been trying to find the way out so I could come back for you. And I thought I told you that you were to leave if I didn't come back."

Mai scowled at her. "Surprise, Azula, you don't get to tell me what to do anymore."

"Friends," Lu Ten said, "let's not argue when Ty Lee is still in great danger of falling."

Mai stepped toward the tree, lifted her head, and called out in that dull, flat voice of hers, "Ty Lee, you can come down now. We're reunited. If that means anything. Azula's still wearing her ugly mask."

But the pink light just kept drifting upwards in a spiral pattern.

"She can't hear us," Azula said, frowning.

"She can't hear me," Mai said. "Why don't you order her around, like you always do? She was always listening to you."

Azula scowled at Mai but turned towards Lu Ten. "You're a spirit. Can't you go up there and bring her down?"

Lu Ten shook his head. "I don't think it works like that," he said, uncertainly.

"Of course it would be easier to simply wonder if you could do it or not instead of actually trying to make yourself useful," Azula said.

"I am trying," Lu Ten said. "Just because you can't see doesn't mean I'm not trying."

"Why don't you try, Azula?" Mai said. "You're the one who's not doing anything."

"She doesn't want to scare Ty Lee and cause her to lose her balance," Lu Ten said. "We talked about it before you joined us."

Azula put her palm against the tree again. It felt warm. It felt solid and hard. It felt as if there was a heart inside, pulsing slowly beneath her. "Ty Lee!" she called, and she cringed as she said it too loudly, and it rang from her mouth like a clarion. She remained silent for a moment, and tried again. "Ty Lee, come down here before you fall. I don't think that Mai could take another disappointment if you weren't to come down here safely. She'd find a new way to blame it on me—you know she would."

But the glimpse of pink grew smaller and smaller.

"Maybe it's not her," Azula said, turning back towards the others.

"It's her," Mai said.

"How do you know?"

Mai shrugged. "I just do. You would know too if you cared anything at all for her."

Azula looked up again, and called out louder, "If you come on down, we can find the way out together instead of trying to do it by ourselves. Isn't that what you're all about these days? Being a team player, all dressed up nice and pretty in your Kyoshi kimono?"

There was no answer, and the three figures gathered beneath the tree stared upwards until the pink star completely vanished in the gloom.

"Look at what you did," Mai said. "You scared her off."

"Ty Lee isn't scared of me," Azula said. "None of you have been for a long time, ever since I lost my bending and became absolutely powerless. If people are still scared of me, then it just means they're cowards who need to get over it."

Mai actually trembled beside her. "Or perhaps people are scared of you because some wounds just don't heal."

Lu Ten looked between the two of them. "We should focus on getting Ty Lee back."

"So does that mean you're going to let me climb the tree now?" Mai asked. "Don't you remember that you weren't ever as good at climbing as Ty Lee? You always fell."

Azula hoisted herself into the lowest hanging branches, and hung from her knees as she looked at both Mai and Lu Ten. Her hair was so long it nearly reached the ground, and she wished she had something to tie it back. "I am going to climb the tree, and I'm not going to fall."

"Because you're the most perfect girl in the world?" Mai asked.

Azula ignored her as she flipped herself upward and began to climb. "Mai, be sure to make a note about the color of my aura if there is one. Maybe we can have Ty Lee compare and tell us which one has the grungiest aura. I probably have you beat, of course, so it wouldn't be much of a contest."

When Mai didn't answer Azula glanced down and saw that the ground was very far away indeed. But she couldn't think about that now. She only shook her head and continued the climb until she saw a glimmer of pink.

The longer she climbed, the brighter the glimmer became, but also the thinner the branches grew. It was very treacherous, climbing, and once a branch snapped beneath her weight. She tumbled downwards until she was able to stop her fall by clutching one of the sturdier limbs with her scratched, raw hands, and she wished that she had Ty Lee's nimble feet.

She clung to the tree, closing her eyes against the familiar sting of envy, the jealousy, when it should be the other way around. But there wasn't time for that and, forcing her eyes open, forcing herself to breathe, she climbed a little more carefully, a little more slowly, until, balancing nearly on her toes, she came so close to the pink glow that she was able to see a girl's figure inside it, and then she was able to see Ty Lee's profile, her bowed head, her closed eyes, and her long braid.

"Ty Lee," Azula said, as she reached towards her. But Ty Lee was still out of reach, and Azula was too afraid that the tree would not be able to bear both their weights. "Ty Lee!"

Slowly, Ty Lee's eyes opened, and she gazed down at Azula. "What are you doing here, Princess?"

"Trying to get you to come down. Haven't you heard us shouting for you?"

Ty Lee shook her head. Azula noticed then that her eyes were glazed and unfocused, and she wondered if she had been trapped in a memory before Azula had pulled her out of it.

"I'm in a tree," Ty Lee said. "Do you remember the trees at the palace? They weren't big like this one—they were small and tiny, and you wouldn't let me climb them because they weren't for climbing, you said, they were for decoration."

"You would have destroyed them if I had let you," Azula said.

"Just like you destroyed us," Ty Lee said. "Just like we were decoration."

"Why don't we discuss that when you're down on the ground," Azula said. "I don't know why you climbed so high—it's dangerous."

Ty Lee set her face and made to ease herself down, but then she drew herself up again, tight and trembling. Her aura seemed to dim, and Azula did not think that was a good sign at all.

"I can't," Ty Lee said. "I'm too afraid I'll fall."

"I'll catch you," Azula said. "Remember when we used to spot each other when we tumbled in the grass? It will be just like that."

Ty Lee glared at her in accusation. "You let me fall almost every time. Sometimes you even pushed me down! You were a mean, Azula! You hurt my feelings almost every day."

Azula had nothing to say to that because it was true; she had let Ty Lee fall, and sometimes she had pushed her. "What if I promised that I wouldn't do that this time? It can be any kind of promise you like, and if that's still not good enough for you, just remember that this isn't some childish game. We're trapped in the spirit world, thousands of feet from the ground. If I were to let you fall, you wouldn't just climb back to your feet again, pretending to laugh with me."

But Ty Lee just shook her head. "That's not true. Don't you remember the only time you came to see me was when you wanted something from me? And when I turned you down, you burned the net, set off a stampede of angry animals. If I had fallen, and the net hadn't burned me, I would have been trampled underfoot. I would have died, and you wouldn't have cared because you've never cared—you've always been so selfish, and I don't know why, I don't know what more I can do."

Azula's throat went dry. The branches trembled beneath her weight and she shifted herself, carefully. "Yes, you're right-I did do all those things. I have done terrible things to many people, but especially to you and Mai, when we were supposed to have been friends. I know there's nothing I can say to make it better. I know that they can't be undone or forgotten. But I don't want to hurt you, Ty Lee, and I don't want to see you get hurt. I know we can't start over but do you think that we could maybe start to trust each other?"

Ty Lee put her hands over her eyes and shook her head so that her braid whipped back and forth. "How can I trust you when you always lie?"

Azula said nothing.

There was a long stretch of silence between the girls when Ty Lee finally broke it. She peeked at Azula between her fingers. "Why are you still wearing that horrible mask? I can't tell if you look scary or silly."

"I like it," Azula said. "I've already lost my face once, and I don't want to lose it again." Which was, she realized, another lie. Because she knew she wouldn't lose her face unless she went to visit Koh. She wore it because she couldn't trust her face anymore, just like she couldn't trust her body when she had first lost her bending. Now, she found herself too frequently on the verge of crying. Now, she could feel herself looking sad when there was no reason to be sad. The mask was the only safe thing.

"Take it off for me," Ty Lee said. "I don't want to talk to that thing."

Azula did not want to remove her tenuous grip on the branches, but she did it anyway, unknotting the mask with one hand so that it slipped free and she held it in her grimy fingers.

Ty Lee clutched at the branches even tighter. "You've got the eye on your forehead. Can you bend now?"

"No," Azula said. "If I could bend, do you think that I would have climbed this tree, breaking my nails and scraping my skin, when I could have just used firebending to power me up here?"

Ty Lee considered. "I suppose. Unless you didn't want us to know that you still didn't have your bending."

"That's always a possibility," Azula said, "but I'm not lying when I tell you that I do not have firebending. I have tried to keep my patience with you, Ty Lee, but we need to go. Mai and Lu Ten are waiting for us, and if we don't come back, Mai is probably going to climb this tree herself and then the three of us will be stuck."

"Why are you always trying to order me around," Ty Lee said. "I'm not your—your-" Ty Lee struggled for the word. "I'm not your servant."

Azula sighed, exasperated. "We need to get down there, now, and all you're doing is clinging to the top of this tree while you confront me about all the ways in which I wronged you. We can do it later, when we're safe."

"I probably won't want to do it later," Ty Lee said. "I don't like to think about how you hurt me, I don't like to talk about this." She released her grip on the tree and clutched her head. "But this fog brings everything to the surface. It makes everything hurt again, and I can barely think." She gestured grandly, and Azula's stood very still, afraid that if too many people moved or shifted the tree would well and truly break beneath them. "Like, I know I came up here for a reason! I know I had a good reason for climbing up this high. But the only thing I can think about is having to decide between you and Mai at the Boiling Rock. You were so angry, you were nothing but rage and teeth. What was I supposed to do, Azula? What was I supposed to do? Every decision was wrong. Every decision meant that we would never be the same, that things could never go back."

Azula swore. "My own brother was going to ask the Avatar to take my bending away after he took away my father's, so what does that tell you?"

"That I did the right thing," Ty Lee said, slowly.

"Yes, you did the right thing." Azula felt the tree groan beneath her, felt how slippery and sweaty her hands had become. She realized, then, that she was afraid that she was going to fall, and that there was no one who would catch her. "What do you want me to say? If you want me to say that I'm sorry, then I will but it won't mean anything because it's just words, it's just something to say, and I've said it before without meaning it so you wouldn't have any reason to believe me now."

Ty Lee said nothing as she stared at Azula. "What did you say?" she whispered.

"Do we really want to keep Mai waiting?" Azula said, sounding too desperate. "You know how she hates waiting, how bored she gets."

Ty Lee nodded, then and again her leg lowered to find the next branch. As Ty Lee shifted downwards, so did Azula, still gazing upward as Ty Lee slowly lowered herself to the same spot where Azula had stood only moments before.

It was at that moment that the branch splintered, shattering under her weight. Ty Lee screamed as she fell, and Azula grabbed her by the waist, shuddering as she braced her feet against the tree to help bear the extra weight, and then the surreal knowledge moments before it happened that the limb on which she stood was about to break as well.

They fell together, crashing through the leaves and limbs, smashing the weak tree with their combined weight until Azula slammed into the ground on her back, with Ty Lee toppling onto her stomach a few seconds later.

Azula couldn't breathe.

Mai helped Ty Lee to her feet, and then looked down at Azula. "What took you so long?"

Azula couldn't speak as Lu Ten bent to help her to her feet. Azula clutched his shoulder as she tried to catch her breath.

"You look terrible, cousin," Lu Ten said as he pushed her hair back from her sticky forehead.

Azula could well imagine that she did. She was certain the fall had cracked several of her ribs, and she was light headed from having her lungs pancaked between the ground and Ty Lee. Amazingly, Azula still had her mask, though it was scuffed and cracked from the fall. With shaking hands, she tied it back over her face. "And now I just look like someone in a mask," Azula said, though it took all her effort to keep her voice from shaking.

"You should rest," Lu Ten said softly. "You should let them know that you are injured."

She turned back to Ty Lee and Mai, who were hugging each other. Well, Ty Lee was hugging Mai, and Mai was standing there patiently.

"Ty Lee, are you alright?" Azula asked.

"Just a few scrapes and bruises," Ty Lee said, breaking from Mai and beaming at her. "I feel great!" And then Ty Lee had her arms around Azula, and Azula didn't know what to do with her hands. Ty Lee hugged hard, and Azula was glad the mask hid her pain.

"I'm glad somebody does," Mai said.

"Are you alright?" Ty Lee whispered in Azula's ear. "That was quite a fall!"

"I'm always fine," Azula said.

Ty Lee broke away from her, looking at her too seriously until her eyes lit up. "Oh! I also remember why I climbed the tree. It was because I thought I could get above the spirit, which I did! And, I know the way out of here. We're actually really close to the edge of the valley. We must have just been wandering in circles for however long we've been here."

"Let's go, then," Azula said. "I'm ready to be gone from here. This place is depressing."

"You're telling me," Ty Lee said. "I could feel my aura growing dimmer and dimmer by the minute."

Mai sighed. "The only reason we found you was because we could see your aura glowing even in this dismal place."

Ty Lee clapped her hands. "Does that mean that I was the one who saved you all?"

"I suppose it does," Lu Ten said. "I'm Lu Ten, Azula's cousin."

"Oh I know all about you," Ty Lee said. "Azula used to talk about you all the time—" And then her voice faltered as she remembered just why Azula used to talk about him all the time.

"Enough talking. Let's go before we forget the way out," Mai said.

Azula nodded. "We should hurry." She took Ty Lee's hand and reached for Mai's. "We should hold onto each other. We don't want to become separated all over again."

Mai stepped away from her. "Don't touch me. I'm still mad at you."

"And that's fine since you feel so strongly about it," Azula said, "but that doesn't change the fact that we need to stay together."

Mai held onto Ty Lee's other hand while Lu Ten took hold of Azula's. It only took them a few minutes for them to find the edge of the valley through the thinning fog. The path winding upwards was narrow, only wide enough for two. Azula walked beside Lu Ten while Ty Lee and Mai walked ahead of them. She looked at Lu Ten as they made their way upwards. Lu Ten was dead so he would not be able to accompany them in the physical world, but she was glad that he was no longer trapped in the fog. What a dreadful place to wander for so many years.

Clearing her throat, and holding her elbow tight across the place where her ribs ached, she said, "I've been banished from Ba Sing Se, but if you like, I suppose I could send a hawk to Uncle Iroh to let him know you're here. Perhaps, he'll want to see you again."

"Please don't do that," Lu Ten said, his voice quiet. "I've made peace with my death, and from what you have told me, so has my father. I am glad for him. I am glad that he has found another son in Zuko."

Azula's face twisted behind the blue wooden cheeks of her mouth.

"I'm sorry that he did not find a daughter in you," Lu Ten added.

Azula tossed her head, even though it hurt to do so. "Oh don't concern yourself about that. I would only be a disappointment."

"Azula—" Lu Ten said in that regretful voice that Azula had come to dread.

"I don't want your pity," Azula said. "It's for fools. My relationship with your father is what it is. There's nothing that can be done about what has passed."

Lu Ten smiled at her. "You do realize that you are wearing the mask of a fool, don't you? At the end of the play, the Dragon Emperor forges the love that breaks the curse and defeats the spirit that had cursed him. I always thought that the spirit must have been very foolish to make a curse like that."

Azula groaned, partly because remembering that play was groan-worthy, but also because each step was agony. "The Ember Island Players butchered that play. It was so embarrassing, sometimes. But Zuko and I enjoyed them, once when we were kids. We always used to re-enact the duel at the end." Though, now that she thought of it, she could not remember which parts they had played.

They were nearing the rising edge of the valley. Mai and Ty Lee had already disappeared over the top. Azula paused, bracing herself against the rock as she tried to find her breath.

"What will you do now?" Lu Ten asked.

"I'm going to return the scrolls," Azula said, "and then I'm going to go home. I don't think there's anything more I can do to find our mother. And Zuko will understand. I do not believe he will truly exile me, even though he will be sad that I was unable to find out the truth." Her father would think him weak, but she was just relieved.

Lu Ten put his hand on her shoulder. "I am glad you are going home. I'm glad that you are not going to be like me, who died before I ever had a chance."

"Not that I deserve to go home," Azula said. "I've lost everything. My father, my brother, my mother, my throne, my title. It's almost desperate, pitiful to return without bringing something in exchange. But I have nowhere else to go, and I am tired."

"I think Zuko will be glad that you are safe," Lu Ten said. "He won't care about everything else. You don't have to earn your place in your own family. At least you shouldn't have to."

Azula laughed, the dizzy, crazed laugh made everything seem so far away. "Then you don't know our family, Lu Ten. With our father, we always needed to earn our place. But Zuko's not like that anymore, if he ever was." It had been that way with her mother too, but she was tired of talking about her mother. No one seemed to see her the way she did. And maybe she was wrong about her, but she didn't think she was.

They lingered at the top of the ridge as Ty Lee did cartwheels to celebrate being out of the fog, of actually being able to see the world around them instead of wandering lost and alone.

"At least one good thing has come out of this," Azula said. "You're no longer trapped in the fog yourself."

Lu Ten put his hand on her shoulder. "I have a secret. I never was lost in the fog."

Azula turned towards him. "Don't lie! We practically stumbled into each other. And you said you were trapped there because of what happened with the Fire Nation."

"I was trapped down there once, when I first came here. But I had long since found my way free. But then, years and years later, a strange thing happened. I saw my cousin wandering, and I started to follow her. What was she doing here, I wondered to myself. And then she did something incredibly silly, which was going into the fog of souls of her own volition." He shook his head, smiling at her. "Of course, I had no choice but to go after you."

Azula remained silent as her mouth gaped behind her mask. "That was very generous of you," she said finally as she bowed to him. "I thank you."

"So formal," Lu Ten said as he messed her hair, and Azula suddenly remembered he had done that when she was very, very young—too young to be annoyed by it, like she was now. Then his eyes shifted to something in the distance, and pointed. "Look—I think the Avatar has come to guide you from this world. Maybe I will see you again—" and then he was gone.

Azula lunged for him, but her hands fell through light and shadow. "Wait!" she cried out because maybe the Avatar would have been able to find a way for Lu Ten to come with them. Wasn't he supposed to be the bridge between their two worlds?

But he was gone, and all she could do was look where he had pointed. There was the Avatar, a lone figure slowly walking the fields towards them, and then breaking into a run as he caught sight of them.

"Zuko?" he asked. "How did you get here? Did the fire sages help or—" and his face fell as Azula took off her mask.

"I'm sorry to disappoint you, Avatar, but my brother isn't here" she said. She stared at the mask and imagined her brother's face behind it.

Aang bowed to her. "Princess Azula, when I last saw your face, it was one of Koh's. I came to rescue you." He looked at her more closely. "You do not look well. But that is a really cool eye tattoo! Where'd you get it? The assassin your brother sent after us when we weren't friends had one like it—he was not so cool. He was actually really scary, like you."

Azula rarely felt at a loss for words, but she could not think of what to say when she looked at Aang, at the boy she had once tried to kill. He was younger than her. He was just a kid, really, for all his great deeds. And then she felt anger that they had lectured her about trying to kill him when Zuko, the favorite child, had apparently sent an assassin after him.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" Aang said.

But by this time, Mai and Ty Lee had come to them, and spoke before Azula could respond.

"Have you come to rescue us from the Spirit World?" Mai asked. "I thought once that the Fire Nation was dreadful, and then I thought that Omashu was dismal, but none of them are a match for this awful place."

Aang laughed. "Yep! Just follow me! Suki has been beside herself with worry and Zuko wanted to come but he couldn't—he asked Uncle Iroh to come, but I found out about the spirit portal and decided to keep trying to find you without waiting for him to come all the way from Ba Sing Se. Where were you? I kept trying to find you, and I couldn't until today." He paused, looking slightly chagrined. "And I'm the Avatar!"

"I'm sure the fog of lost souls had something to do with that," Mai said. And since Aang wasn't familiar with that place, Mai and Ty Lee told him all about it.

"Enough," Azula said. "I just want to get out of here. How are we going to do that?"

"I'm going to try to guide you to the spirit portal. It's an entrance that allows physical bodies to pass between the worlds. It can only be opened on a solstice, so I wasn't able to come through it myself. I've just meditated myself here. But I think the spirit portal might let you out. C'mon, I'll show you. It's not far."

They followed him, and they went at a brisk pace even though Azula lagged behind, trying to disguise how hard it was for her to walk and to breathe.

Eventually, they came to a plain field with a gnarled, hollow tree in its center. Azula wondered what it might hold, but was distracted by the pile of rocks that Aang was walking toward. A soft light glowed from the pile. He told them that it was the portal, and Azula looked down at it with skepticism.

"So, um," Aang said, his fingers twiddling, "the weather might be a little bit on the bad side when you exit. But—" and his face brightened – "Appa will be nearby and there will be warm things and we won't have to walk to the Southern Water Tribe."

"Great," Mai said. "Let's go."

"This had better work," Azula said, trying to figure out what they would do if it didn't.

"It will," Aang said as he smiled. "I'll see you on the other side." He vanished from sight and the girls peered at each other.

Taking a deep breath, the three girls step forward onto the pile of rocks. The rocks shifted into something like water, refracted by the glowing, pulsing light. They slipped deeper into it until they were on their knees in the snow as a blizzard whirled around them.

Aang was there to greet them, and he helped them to their feet, urging them forward as they bowed against the cold wind knifing through their thin clothes. Aang seemed unaffected by the cold. He wore the same saffron and gold robes he had worn when he had defeated her father. One shoulder was bare, and he was not even shivering. Maybe it was an airbender thing. But still, resentment bit through Azula, and she gritted her teeth as her eyes watered from the sting of the wind, at how Mai and Ty Lee were huddled together for what little warmth remained to them.

"I would have brought you warm things," Aang shouted over the howling of the wind, "if I had known that I would find you so quickly."

"Oh it's fine," she said, even though it hurt, "I'm feeling very comfortable."

But, when they made it to Appa, there was gear there, and Aang helped them into the thick, water-proof blanket. Azula huddled on the edge of the saddle, trying to regulate her breathing as she waited for Appa to bring them to the Southern Water Tribe.

She must have fallen asleep because Ty Lee was shaking her awake, whispering that they were there. Stiff limbed, skin cold except for the hot pain in her ribs, she climbed down from Appa and stumbled in the snow, following Aang as he led them to Katara's house. Blearily, she remembered about the eye on her forehead, and she pulled at her hair, to hide it. She didn't feel like answering questions about it, especially if people would just assume that she could combustion bend, even though she couldn't-at least not yet. But that wouldn't be the same. She wanted her blue fire back, not something else instead.

Katara waited for them, all in blue.

Aang ran to her, and they hugged each other before kissing their cheeks. Over Ty Lee's head, Mai and Azula caught each other's gaze for a moment, rolling their eyes in sync before Mai jerked her head pointedly away, sinking into an even deeper sulking slouch.

"Suki!" Katara called over her shoulder, and there she was in water tribe gear with Sokka following her. "Aang's back!"

Ty Lee broke from between them and rushed towards Suki, throwing her arms around her shoulders, holding her tightly as Suki returned her embrace.

Azula watched the reunion, trying not to feel the sting of bitterness. Because Ty Lee would surely return with Suki to Kyoshi Island. They would part ways on their return journey and who knew when Azula would see her again.

But that didn't matter at all. Ty Lee could do what she wanted to do, and who would stop her?

"I do hate to interrupt, but do you think it would be possible to get out of the cold?" Azula said.

Aang looked abashed and Katara nodded as she gestured for them to come inside.

There was a fire already lit, and Ty Lee and Mai crowded around it, holding out their hands to the heat. It smelled like meat in here, and she saw a rack where there was newly smoked seal flesh. Katara must have been preparing it with salt to preserve it for the upcoming winter months.

Azula rolled her eyes. She might as well get the whole reason for their journey over with. She turned to look at Katara. She did not look like a warrior now, though she still kept water slung to her side. Sokka stood beside her, his arms folded threateningly, his face glowering as if he had preferred they had never come.

Well, that made two of them. Still, she stood straight as she could manage, and bowed to them both. "I am Azula, Princess of the Fire Nation," she said, even though they all knew who she was, but this was official business and thus must be done officially, "daughter of Ursa and Ozai, and sister of Firelord Zuko." She took a deep breath and fumbled for the scrolls still belted to her waist. Mai turned away from the fire and came to help her with the straps, and then to stand by her side, which surprised Azula so much she almost dropped the scrolls she had been entrusted to return. "My brother told me he found these scrolls in the libraries of the Fire Sages. There are no records of how we obtained them, but Firelord Zuko believes they were stolen in one of the raids."

Sokka glared at her. "You mean one of the raids that wiped out our villages, kidnapped our waterbenders, and killed our mom—one of those raids?" Sokka stepped forward, accusing, but Azula could see the hurt etched in his eyes, in the lines of his face. He always bore it there, in plain sight. She had seen it when they had caught her in the walls of the tunnel, when she was tasked with distracting them from her father.

"Yes," she said quietly, biting her tongue to keep from saying anything more.

He snatched them out of her hands and gave them to Katara, who opened the box with shaking fingers.

Azula wondered then if they hadn't ever wondered how Uncle Iroh had learned to re-direct lightning. Where else had he learned it but from stolen scrolls like these?

Katara put the scrolls very carefully on a nearby table. Aang slipped his hand in hers, and squeezed it.

Azula tried not to stare at those eyes and glared at the furs hung along the back of the hut. "We return these scrolls, along with a promise that we will return all artifacts we find that are not ours." She said it just like Zuko had written it down for her.

Beside her, Mai bowed deeply, and Azula followed suit. "Firelord Zuko would also like to extend an open invitation for you and others of the Water Tribes to correspond with him. He knows that the Fire Nation has hurt you very badly, and he will do what is needed to restore what has been lost."

"Thank you," Katara said. "I am sure we will have much to discuss."

Katara turned away as if their business was finished, and Azula looked at Mai and Ty Lee only to see them looking expectantly at her, and she remembered there was still more to ask of the Water Tribe after all her grand words. She flushed with shame. "My companions are weary," Azula said, "and they miss their home. I ask that you grant us safe passage, and a ship, that will be paid for once we return."

"We don't have any money," Mai explained. "What little we had was lost when we were dragged to the spirit world."

"I understand," Katara said. "We've already arranged passage for Suki. If the captain is willing, I am sure you can come with her as she trades regularly with the Fire Nation."

Ty Lee clapped her hands. "Thank you so much."

She flashed the whole room with a smile like she didn't know that every single person hated them and that the whole interaction had not gone well. Azula pressed her fingers to her aching head and wondered what Zuko had been thinking sending her instead of just coming himself. At least they liked him. At least they considered him a friend. She was just their enemy.

"I'll show you your huts until you're ready to leave in a few days," Sokka said.

They followed him and Azula drifted beside Mai. "Why did you help me in there? Are you finally starting to warm up to me again?"

"No," Mai said as she shrugged. "But one day, I'm going to be Fire Lady. It felt like the right thing to do. Restoring the Fire Nation's honor can't all be Zuko's responsibility."

"Who would have thought," Azula said. "Mai, taking responsibility, Mai accepting all those boring duties associated with all of that." She held her hand to her aching side as she tried to laugh. "I guess some things do change."

Mai's eyes slid sidewise towards her before re-focusing on Sokka in front of them. "You're one to talk. You never abandoned us. You never even tried to kill us. You saved our lives a couple of times, even." She sighed. "If anyone should be pointing and laughing at you, it's me."

"If you say I've changed so much, then why are you still mad at me?" Azula said.

"You could turn as kind as Aang tomorrow," Mai said, "and I would not forgive you or want to be your friend. You should leave it alone. You should leave me alone."

"If I had left you alone, you'd still be trapped in the spirit world," Azula said.

Mai sighed. "This is exactly what I'm talking about."

Then she left to join Sokka, Suki, and Ty Lee, while Azula lagged behind. It was not often that she felt tired, or like she needed to lie down, but she felt that way now. Exhaustion carved through her, pain knit her flesh, and it took every part of her concentration to breathe, just breathe.

The power of a firebender came from the breath, her uncle had told her when he still spoke to her, when she had been young, very young.

Even if she couldn't bend, she could still be strong, so she focused on breathing through the pain. But it was no use. When they were still a half dozen steps from the hut they were supposed to share (unfortunately), she fainted and collapsed in the snow.


	42. Time To Go Home

"What's wrong with her?" Ty Lee asked anxiously.

They had put Azula in water, warmed over the fire. First, it had steamed around her, and then it had faded into something tepid and sickly looking—like Azula herself, Mai thought. Azula looked thin and weak in the water, with her head propped against the rim of the tub, her hair sticking to her neck.

She didn't look like the same person. Her hair was tangled and unkempt, and for some reason, Mai noticed the absence of her makeup even more so. It had always made her look so much older than she actually was. Her arms floated at her sides, palms nearly turned upwards. Mai could see the pale spots of her calluses, and how her skin was flaking from the dry, cold weather.

The eye that had appeared in the spirit world peered through her bangs. It was unblinking, it was staring. It made Mai uncomfortable.

Katara was bending the water around Azula, and it took on the healing glow, humming rhythmically as Katara guided the water to follow the flow of Azula's chi. "She has broken several ribs that have not been treated. She hid the pain like an idiot instead of asking for help."

That was typical of Azula though. She never asked for help, even when she needed it. Mai shook her head while Ty Lee made small, distressed sounds.

Katara closed her eyes, concentrating. "I've never seen someone's energy so out of balance—so tied up in knots." She lowered her arms, and the water became still, barely disturbed by Azula's breathing. "No wonder she still can't bend."

"So that actually wasn't a lie," Mai said.

Ty Lee batted her elbow, gently. "Don't be mean."

"I'm not. It's just something I was wondering about."

"I'm with Mai on this one," Sokka said, bending over Azula and glaring pointedly at the eye on her forehead. "No offense, but what better way to kill a bunch of unsuspecting people with a surprise firebending attack?" He posed in an exaggerated firebending pose.

"Why isn't she waking up?" Ty Lee said, deliberately turning her back on Sokka.

Katara shook her head. "I don't know. She's burning with fever even though her wounds are not infected. She should be awake but it's almost like she's in a coma."

Mai glared at Azula. Even now she was still making everything about her. Now they would have to stay here waiting for her to wake up when they could have been on their way.

"I've never seen anything like it," Katara said. "I don't know what to do."

"I have," Mai said, still staring at Azula, and the way she floated in the water like she was weightless. Like she had no more burdens to bear. She hated looking at her, but she could not turn away. "Not personally, but I've heard about it."

"When?" Katara asked, putting her hands in Mai's. "Anything you could tell us would help."

"I don't know much," Mai said, "because Zuko doesn't talk about it much. But after he saved Aang's bison—" she caught Aang smile at that—"he was afflicted with an illness. He said that Uncle Iroh said his body was in such conflict with himself, because he had acted so differently from how he perceived himself—" Mai shrugged. "It felt very spiritual. I didn't understand it, and it bored me so I didn't ask more questions. Zuko was fine. He had himself figured out. It didn't matter anymore."

"That was not helpful, Mai," said Sokka.

Ty Lee brightened. "But it was, don't you see! This is evidence that she's changing! Why else would she be sick? She acted differently than she expected of herself." Ty Lee put her hand over her chest in an exaggerated gesture of surprise. "She admitted I was right about something—which has never happened in our time together! She didn't abandon us in the fog!" She stopped, shaking her head as she smiled. "I can't believe this is happening—that this is really happening." She looked at Mai, over-eager, over-smiling, and Mai did not understand. It didn't mean anything yet.

"How did Iroh help him get better?" Katara asked Mai.

"He didn't. He got better on his own."

Sokka burst out laughing. "I'm guessing this is before he betrayed us to join Azula." He glanced back at her. "Which, I'm still trying to figure out why we're taking time to help her? Need I remind you she tried to kill us and actually almost succeeded in killing Aang? She blew up the air temple while we were still inside it!"

Aang flitted to the edge of the pool and dipped his hand in the water. "I forgive her, Sokka."

"You forgive everyone," Sokka said.

"I try to," Aang said, very quietly. "Sometimes it's harder than other times."

"She'd tell you not to take it personally," Mai said. "It's a war, she'd say. People are supposed to die in wars."

"Oh that's real philosophical." Sokka gave everyone a sarcastic thumbs up.

"Can we talk about what we're going to do next?" Ty Lee said. "It's weird, talking about her when she's right there and she can't say anything."

"That's a great idea," Suki said. "I'm sorry, but I don't want to stay here until she wakes up. I don't know when she will wake, and I want to go home to Kyoshi Island. I've been away for far too long."

Sokka bowed his head, and Ty Lee looked at her, hands clasped beneath her chin.

"Ty Lee," Suki said, "you can come or you can stay or you can do whatever you want. Kyoshi Island will always be waiting for you."

Ty Lee looked at Azula's prone body as it floated in the water. Her hair unfurled like ribbons behind her. She looked as if she could be at peace. Maybe. If someone like Azula could ever find peace.

"I'm staying with her," Ty Lee said. "I think she needs us now, more than ever, and I wouldn't forgive myself if I wasn't there when she woke up."

Mai sighed. Ty Lee was always so hopeful, and Mai was always not. But she couldn't leave either, she realized as she remembered what she had said to Azula minutes before she had collapsed.

She had responsibility now for more than just herself. Zuko probably wouldn't mind of she left her behind, but she had made him a promise a long time ago. She couldn't break it by leaving Azula behind. She heaved a long suffering sigh, and prepared herself for the inevitable boredom of waiting for someone to wake up. "I'll also stay."

Ty Lee flashed her a grateful smile that Mai did not return.

They lifted Azula from the water and put her on pile of fur and blankets. Ty Lee sat down beside her, and Mai offered to bring back food since they were both hungry again.

Katara joined Mai. "Azula seems—different," she said.

Mai nodded.

"She was not well when I saw her last."

Mai nodded again, but then stopped even though her feet were cold from the snow. Katara stopped with her, and waited. "I need to tell you something," Mai said. She had put this off for far too long. And it needed to be said. Mai breathed deeply to prepare herself. She could smell the green noodles in their bone broth from here, and her stomach reminded her that she was still hungry. But that could wait.

"What is it?"

Mai swallowed around the lump in her throat. "You saved Zuko, and I never thanked you."

"You saved him first, from what I hear." Katara put her hand in hers. Her mittens were thick, and Mai thought about how hard it would be to throw a knife if she were to wear something similar. "That was really brave of you, standing up to Azula like that."

Mai felt whatever affection or warm feelings that had been slowly rising through her turn sour. "Not really," she said. "It wasn't brave. It was stupid. It was something that should have happened a long time ago."

"But it happened," Katara said. "That's all that really matters. She can't force you to do anything anymore. You're free of her."

Mai looked at the way Katara had her hand in hers. "Azula didn't force me to do anything. I did a lot of bad things before Azula. I didn't care about Omashu, and I didn't think about how wrong it was that we were there. I didn't even care about the plague when that's what we thought was happening." It had been fake, and she wondered if her dad felt as stupid as she did when he realized that pentapox was just something made up. But she could still hear the way she'd offered her father more fireflakes as they had watched the people leave the city, like it was some kind of parade.

It had been a clever trick, but what if it had been real?

Katara was laughing. "That was my idea," she said. "Pentapox. From the little creatures in the sewer?"

Mai could not hide the full body shudder that roiled through her. "That's disgusting."

"Well there was no other way inside," Katara said.

"Right." She turned back, and entered the main structure where they had been met. The fire was still going, and orange light flickered like something warm and friendly and inviting. There was the smell of meat and sea weed in the air—shallots and sea prunes. Aang and Sokka and Suki were clustered around it, enjoying each other's company.

"C'mon, Mai, what's bothering you? You seem more—down than usual."

Mai sat down, and leaned against the cold walls behind her. She thought about how to answer Katara's question, but it was a hard question, and she didn't want to think about it.

"Mai?" Katara asked again.

"I don't know," Mai said. "I don't talk about feelings because I don't have them."

"I don't think that's true," Katara said. "But I don't want to press you either. You don't need to talk to me about what you're feeling—or not feeling—if you don't want to. But know that I'm here for you, alright?"

Mai nodded, and was about to say something when Chief Hakoda came in with a whirl of wind and snow. A messenger hawk clung to his arm, and he held a parchment in his hand.

"I have some bad news," he said.

Mai exchanged a glance with Katara before both girls rose to their feet.

"What is it, Dad?" Katara asked.

Mai recognized the thin thread of fear in her voice.

"It's from Firelord Zuko—well, not from him directly, but rather from one of his officials."

Mai felt cold as she listened which was to be expected of course. She was in the South Pole. It wasn't exactly a day at Ember Island.

"Apparently, the New Ozai Society has made an attack on his life—" there was a great outcry in the room, but Chief Hokada raised his hand for restraint—"but he survived and is in good health. Zuko didn't want any news to be sent to you—" he nodded at Mai—"but they do not feel the same. They are asking you to come home in a show of solidarity for the Firelord. Mai showing her support would be particularly welcome, considering her family's connections."

Mai nodded. That would only work if her family weren't actually heading up the New Ozai Society, which was something she still suspected. And if they had tried to kill Zuko—she jumped when Katara put her hand in hers. "Does the letter say what happened?"

Chief Hakoda shook his head. "It doesn't give any specifics. It looks as if it was written in quite a hurry."

Which meant things were bad. It was the only reason why Zuko would refuse to write them, and that his ministers had gone behind his back. Those traitors, she thought dully, and she heard an echo of Azula's voice in those words. She shook her head. She was grateful that they had gone behind his back, and mad at Zuko for wanting to hide it from them.

"I will take Mai and Ty Lee to the Fire Nation on Appa," Aang said. "I should be there as well. We cannot let Ozai or people who share his ideals take the throne. Not after everything."

"I'll send for the Kyoshi Warriors," Suki said. "The Fire Nation could be rife with traitors. Zuko will need a trustworthy bodyguard."

"Well, we're coming too," Katara said.

Sokka raised Suki's hand in his. "Sword and fan reunited again!" But then he bowed his head. "Just not the same sword. You'll always be in my heart, space sword."

"That leaves no one to watch Azula while she recovers," Mai said.

"Don't worry about her," Chief Hokada said. "She can stay here until she recovers or until things calm down over there. I can't imagine any of us particularly want Azula to be in such a—" he paused, as if looking for the right word.

"Mess?" Sokka suggested.

"I agree," Mai said. "Azula should be kept as far as possible from this."

The New Ozai Society would love to recruit her, even without her bending. Ozai and Azula on their side? People would go over to them just out of fear of what those two would do to them. It was easy to forget they wouldn't be able to do anything—not now at least. But before—they could have, and the memory of that wasn't going to just go away anytime soon.

Azula would join the New Ozai Society. There was no way she wouldn't-no matter how much she had changed. It was alwas so easy to fall back into familiar patterns. Mai knew this—she would always know it when it came to Azula.

Also, Azula wouldn't let her forget if her father was the leader of the New Ozai Society—she could already hear her mocking, scornful voice, What a terrible thing our fathers are, aren't they, Mai?

She shook her head, blotting out the noise. She had better things to think about, more urgent things.

Mai had warned Zuko about the possibility of her father, but had he listened?

"What are you thinking about?" Katara asked. "You look so far away."

"I'm afraid," Mai said.

"It's okay—it's scary," Katara said. "I'm afraid too."

She shook her head. She wasn't afraid for Zuko's life (though she was) but—"I think my father is the head of the society. Azula would say I was being paranoid, delusional, but I don't think I am. It's something—" her voice trailed off.

"Why would you think that?"

"Because Azula renamed Omashu as New Ozai before she went to foil your attempts to rescue King Bumi." She scowled. "My father hated Zuko took away his governorship of New Ozai."

Katara nodded. "Oh."

"It's nothing. It's me being stupid." Mai hugged herself. "The sooner we make it to the Fire Nation the better."

"We leave tomorrow morning," Aang called out.

"We'd better get ready then," Katara said.

Mai joined Katara as she prepared them for their journey. They packed the blankets, the food, and anything else they might need. "We can't bring too much," Katara explained, "because Appa will get tired. So we need to be smart and careful."

Mai nodded. She hadn't had to worry about that before. They always just used their machines that went forward, no matter how much was required of them.

And they had required much of them.

After they were done packing, she went back to where Azula was, where Ty Lee was with her. Ty Lee was holding her hand, stroking her skin soothingly as she murmured something to her. She stopped when Mai entered. Her face fell. "What's wrong?"

Mai told her about the attempt on Zuko's life. Told her how she had to go.

"Who else is going?" Ty Lee asked.

"Katara, Sokka, Suki." Mai sighed as she sat down beside Ty Lee. She looked at Azula. She looked at Ty Lee holding Azula's hand. "I was hoping you would come with me." They needed Ty Lee. She was a skilled fighter. They had always been stronger as a team.

Ty Lee's face crumpled. Mai remembered Boiling Rock, and how Ty Lee had had to choose between Mai or Azula. And this time, it was Mai making her do the choosing instead.

Ty Lee was silent for a long moment. "I know this important," she finally said. "I know that we can't let Zuko be taken out of the picture. And I know that Azula will want to return home to him whenever she's ready."

Her face was pale, and Mai wondered if she was really talking herself into the decision to come with them. Ty Lee leaned over and pressed a kiss against Azula's forehead. "I'm sorry, Princess Azula," she whispered. "You'll understand when you wake up. We're not abandoning you—I'm not abandoning you. But you're not well, and things are bad. You'll be safer here, and I promise that I'll come back for you once we take care of what's going on in the Fire Nation. I know what you'd say. You'd be so angry that they would dare betray their Firelord. You'd want me to go after them, because they're traitors, and I know how you feel about traitors."

Mai knew exactly how Azula felt about traitors, and she shifted uncomfortably.

Ty Lee rose after a moment, and looked down at Mai. "I need to pack. Do you mind watching her for me."

Mai nodded, and Ty Lee left, letting in a cold blast of air. Mai shivered, and she thought, for a moment, that Azula had shivered too. Mai held her breath as she watched Azula again, but there was only the shallow rise and fall of her breath. Her eyes were closed but they flickered, as if they saw fevered dreams.

Gently, Mai lifted the thick polar-bear fur covering. Her ribs were bandaged, but Mai could see the bruises seeping from under the bandages. It must have happened when she had fallen from the tree. "You should have said something," Mai said.

She dropped the covers, and stared at Azula. Fever made her skin shine.

"I wish I could believe," Mai whispered. She knew that Ty Lee was right about some things, but that she could be wrong about other things. Ty Lee was in love with Azula. She would always give her the benefit of the doubt. But Mai wasn't like that. Someone had to make sure that they weren't being fooled again that Azula might care for them. She still remembered how it felt when Azula had noticed her, had welcomed her. Mai missed that. She wanted it back. But that was the past, and it hadn't been real. It had just been a lie. It had always been a lie.

Mai picked up Azula's hand. She did not hold it, but she placed her fingers over her wrist, and listened to the thin, thready beat of her heart. "You're going to be fine," Mai said, as she put it down again. "You're always fine."

Ty Lee joined her, and they slept on either side of Azula. They left in the morning at an obscenely early time when it was still dark, when the moon was hidden by clouds. It was cold, and Mai huddled in her polar bear dog skin as she climbed up on Appa's back. With a quiet yip yip, they took off into the sky.

First, they went to Kyoshi Island so that Suki and Ty Lee could prepare the other Kyoshi Warriors to join them. It took another several weeks to reach the Fire Nation, and when they did, Zuko was there to meet them personally. His arm was in a sling, but otherwise he seemed fine. He greeted Aang first, while Mai stood back and watched.

It had been so long since she had seen him. He looked tired, but happy, as he smiled at Aang, and then smiled at her as she went to him. She hugged him, she kissed him, she said, "I missed you," into his ear as her fingers curled into his robe.

He was not wearing the Fire Nation blaze that would have distinguished him as the Firelord. It would have been easy to mistake him for one of them, for someone who was just a good friend, instead of someone who had to make the hard choices.

Mai knew she should return home, to greet her family, to see Tom-Tom again, but she was afraid to see her father. She did not interrupt when, at the demands of Sokka and Katara, Zuko immediately told them what had happened. He had been walking, he had been attacked by a band of masked men who had declared their allegiance to Ozai. He had beaten them off, but not without injury. Sokka had been indignant, demanding where his retinue had been, asking if he needed to whip them into shape, but Zuko had laughed, saying he had been alone.

Alone? Mai frowned as she listened.

Sokka must have felt the same. "You were what!?" he shouted, his eyes bugged wide, the vein in his neck twitching. He put his arm around Zuko's shoulder, the side that wasn't injured, and said, "Buddy, you're the Firelord. You're not supposed to be alone."

And Sokka was right. Zuko was just the Firelord, not invincible.

Zuko had just laughed, and then had had them shown to the chambers that had been arranged for them. Mai allowed Zuko to take her by the hand, to take her to his old room, which was still so simple and small, and to the couch where they had spent so much time together.

They sat together, and there was a pleasant silence between them as Zuko made them both tea.

"I'm so glad you're alright, Mai," Zuko finally said. "When I read Aang's letter about how you all had been dragged into the spirit world, I was so afraid that you were gone, and that I wouldn't see you again." He put his hand in hers, and squeezed.

Mai looked at his hand over hers. His skin was pockmarked with small scars from his duel with Azula, where hot sparks had landed on his skin. She smoothed her thumb over them.

"I should have listened to you," she said finally. "I shouldn't have come."

He put his hand against the curve of her skull and guided her so that she leaned against his chest. She closed her eyes.

"Was Azula horrible?" he asked. "If she was, I'm sorry." He kissed the crown of her head.

"She wasn't horrible all the time," Mai said. "That's why I shouldn't have come. Because now I think that maybe she could have changed, but I'm still mad at her. She's in my head, like she always has been."

"I know the feeling," Zuko said. "I think about her all the time. I think about the kind of family, we might have been. I look at Katara and Sokka, and I think, maybe we could have had something like that. Maybe we still could. I won't give up her."

Mai remained silent. "Don't wait forever, Zuko," she said. She looked at the sling. "You shouldn't go out alone. Why weren't you in the Palanquin? That's what they're for."

"I'm not going around in that thing anymore. It's spoiled, and I'm not better than the people who would have to bear me on their shoulders. I've walked across the entire breadth of the Earth Kingdom, I think I can manage a relaxing stroll."

"Not when people are after you. You told me about them before I left, and you just walk around without any protection."

"I won't do it again, I promise," Zuko said smiling, as he tried to kiss her cheek.

She pushed him away. "I'm serious, Zuko. You know the Kyoshi Warriors are coming later, right? Please don't just leave them behind whenever you want to be alone, at least not until we ruin this New Ozai Society. Did you investigate my father?"

Zuko sighed. "Your father isn't involved."

"Of course you didn't." Mai turned away from him.

"I did, Mai, but I didn't find anything. I'm not going to act against him just because he might be involved. If he is we'll find out eventually. And if he isn't, then you can be embarrassed about it later."

"You can be embarrassed about it later," Mai said, "when I'm proven right."

"I don't think he wants my father back," Zuko said. "I will refrain from saying I told you so though when it turns out I'm the one who's right about this."

Mai relaxed a little more. "You're wrong. You can't trust my father."

"Maybe you should visit him. Put your mind at ease."

Mai smiled. "Only after I'm tired of seeing you."

They lapsed into another silence after that, until Mai fell asleep in Zuko's arms. It had been the first time in months that she had had a sound sleep, and she did not want to wake.


	43. The Creek

Of course she had watched Zuko's first Agni Kai. Of course she had watched as he had begged and pleaded with his father for mercy. Of course she had stared at her father's resolute advance, utterly and completely unmoved from his purpose.

Of course she had watched for how could she not? She had been watching since she was small, only this time it was happening in front of everybody who mattered instead of in private behind some curtain.

Of course she had smiled because Zuko was weak and always would be though she had tried so hard to make him strong. Even this would not strengthen him because he wasn't like her. He was too much like his uncle.

She had seen many other people burn. She had seen her father burn. She had seen her mother burn. And now, she had seen her brother burn.

One day, she knew, she would burn as well because that was the nature of fire. It consumed and destroyed, but it would not turn on her yet. She had learned her lessons well, and now it was Zuko's to do the same.

But when her father had stepped away, when there was only the stench of scorched skin, when there were only the muted whimpers of Zuko, still on his knees, his face twisted, his skin raw and weeping, her father had turned to them, and he issued an edict that Zuko would be banished for refusing to fight.

Of course she smiled while Zuko smoked at her father's feet. Of course she did.

"Why, do you carry this ugly memory with you, sweetheart?" Her mother was using the finest tea set she had, the one that Father never used anymore. She poured Azula a cup of ginseng tea and then gave it to her.

Azula held it in her hand. It was too hot, and she could not drink it yet.

"It's just a memory. It doesn't mean anything." She had smiled. Her mother would have called her a monster for that if she had been there. But she wasn't, because she had been banished, just like her father had banished Zuko.

Her mother smiled at her, softly as she arranged the mooncakes on their little plates even though it was still too early for the festival. Azula had not eaten one for a long time, and her mouth watered. Her mother's hands were so fine. Her rings were inlaid with jade and bound with gold. She stood, and sat beside Azula on her cushion. She brushed crumbs from her fingertips, and Azula caught them in her hand.

"Were you happy that your brother had been punished so cruelly?" Her mother curved her fingers so that she might grace her knuckles along Azula's cheek. Her rings left a trail of goosebumps over Azula's skin.

"It wasn't me," Azula said. "I was the good child, finally. You always preferred Zuko to me, but my father preferred me to Zuko."

"Oh, my love," Ursa said.

Azula squeezed her eyes shut as she slumped forwards, over her tea. The steam rose and filled her barely open mouth.

Ursa's finger trailed down the center of her back, following the length of her spine. Azula straightened under the guiding presence of her mother's touch. "I had to be perfect—I had to be. If I wasn't, he would see. He would be disappointed." She slumped again, thinking of how her father had treated her like Zuko, how he had left her behind. If he could do that, then he could have banished her too. She shivered.

Ursa's hand pressed against the base of her spine. "Sit up straight, Azula. You're slouching."

"Aren't you listening," Azula asked—or tried to, but she could not.

It was a dream, she realized, because she wasn't with her mother at all. Her mother was dead. Instead, she had dozed off during a production of the Ember Island Players. They were awful, but she was endeared to them since she had grown up watching their poorly acted plays as a child.

Her mother had insisted they go until she hadn't, because she was gone.

Azula had the theater to herself, of course, because she was Firelord, and she could do as she pleased.

Blinking the sleep away, she refocused on the play. It was about the end of the One Hundred Year war, when the Avatar, with a pathetically small band, had dared to go against her own father, the previous Firelord, the Phoenix King.

Foolish boy.

Her father was not with her, of course. The play was drivel beneath his sensibilities. If he knew she were here, he would be disappointed.

But he did not know, and her retinue knew the consequences should they betray her.

It was the final act, when the Avatar and his friends had come to the palace. Her brother was there. Zuzu was played by a pompous fool with even worse hair. Her brother had been nothing like that, of course.

But it was okay to laugh because it was funny.

He was supposed to be some buffoon so that everyone would know that his ideals were ridiculous, so that they would not realize the true scar his treachery had left on their family, on their Nation, on their new Empire.

But of course she laughed. She always laughed when she watched this play.

The person who was playing her as a girl was too old and wore too much makeup. Her firebending was mere colored ribbons.

Still, Azula leaned forward in her seat as the cloth comet swung on strings above them. She could feel her wide smile becoming fixed as she watched.

Zuko was confronting her to steal the throne with an Agni Kai. Azula was more than a match for Zuko as her lightning, a light blue ribbon, swung and struck his heart. It was the same choreography with which she had killed the Avatar, but the Avatar had come back.

In this play, Zuko had died screaming about his honor, and then was still. In reality, he had said nothing, only groaning in pain, charred clothes smoking while Azula took care of the waterbender that had come with him, Mai and Ty Lee at her side now that it was no longer an Agni Kai. The play didn't even mention that the waterbender had been there. But Azula knew the truth as she watched the character circle Zuko's body, laughing without stopping, until the curtain closed the scene.

"Get up," Azula whispered through her wide smile. "Get up." She knew the play by heart. Every time she asked Zuko to stand, he never did because he never did anything she asked of him. It was never any different. It never changed because the past was the past. But still, she asked it of him. If he lived, she would ask it of him still.

The curtain opened to reveal the scene between her father and the Avatar. Her father easily defeated him. He was the Phoenix King with the power of the comet at his command. Nothing, and no one, could stop him.

Her hands gripped the edges of her seat. Her long fingernails splintered against the hard wood, lined with gold.

Her heart rabbitted against her chest. Something was wrong, terribly wrong. That wasn't what had happened—once, it had happened differently, hadn't it? Something wet fell from her eyes, and she wiped it hurriedly away, grateful for the dark, grateful that she was by herself.

But she wasn't alone.

In the darkness of the room, something slithered towards her in the dark, on her right hand side.

It was a blue dragon, coiling its lengths around the empty chairs, its head poised a scant distance from her ear. "Why are you crying?" it whispered with her voice, her coldest voice, her cruelest voice. "You have always taken pleasure in other people's suffering. Why is now any different?"

Azula was not afraid of the dragon. She knew it wasn't real because all the dragons were gone, they had all been killed by the superior firebenders. The first masters, killed by their students just as her father had killed his father. She wondered if she would follow in his footsteps. She wondered if her father feared that she would, and that was why he kept her safely away in the Fire Nation while he ruled from Ba Sing Se.

On her left another dragon came to her. Red, this time, whiskers hanging from its long snout like it was old and wise. It probably was, if it had been real. It mirrored the other exactly as it spoke to her with Zuko's voice. "You don't need to listen to her. She speaks lies. She always lies."

Azula closed her eyes. She had not heard Zuko's voice for such a long time, not since the day of the comet.

"Firelord Azula," the blue dragon said, "you don't need to feel guilty about what happened. They were traitors and enemies all working together against you. They deserved what they got. They should have gotten worse!"

"A new era of love and kindness is what the Fire Nation needs, it's what the whole world needs," the red dragon said. "That includes you, sister."

Her mouth twisted. Love. Kindness. Was that why he had jumped in front of the lightning bolt not meant for him, the one she had aimed at her because she knew it would hurt him more? He had ruined everything with his stupid love and his stupid kindness and his stupid honor!

"That's his fault isn't it? He shouldn't have intervened," the blue dragon whispered. "You only did what you had to. He should have known better."

Azula put her hands over her ears. "He asked for it! What's the matter, Azula, no lightning today! You want lightning, I'll give you lightning!" She braced her hands against her knees, panting for breath. Her hair had slid undone out of its top knot, hanging loosely around her face while her Firelord flame clattered behind the chair to the floor.

"You're right, Azula. I did taunt you. Perhaps I shouldn't have done that. I knew something was wrong, but I didn't realize you would break the rules of the Agni Kai to keep your throne. Perhaps I should have, though." His voice sounded sad. "You have always been cunning."

"What would have been the use if I hadn't cheated? You would have re-directed it at me! I couldn't survive that not with it powered by the comet. No one taught me how to re-direct lightning!" She put her hands over her rapidly beating heart. She began to hyperventilate. "It seemed like the only thing I could do. It made sense at the time, it seemed like the right thing to do, the only way to win! What would Father say if I lost throne while he conquered Ba Sing Se?"

It had been easier when it had been the Avatar because he was an enemy who had been hunted by her father and her grandfather and her great grandfather. It was only right that she should hunt him too. It was her legacy. She could still see the calm, detached way she had raised her hand, the empty chasm as the energies collapsed and branched through her body as lightning struck him through the foot, following his blue arrow to his chest. The Avatar's fall. She had done that. She had secured her father's Empire. And when Zuko abandoned them, it only made sense. It was the only way to win, to keep what little trust her father had in her when the Avatar came back, not truly dead as she had boasted, as she had claimed.

She couldn't risk that again. It had been the only way.

The play's illusion fell apart. She remembered what had happened, what had really happened. How she had still lost everything. The throne. Her father. Her brother. Her bending. Mai and Ty Lee. And it was all her fault. She squeezed her eyes shut as she sobbed.

The blue dragon lashed out with its long red tongue, striking her cheek. Blood washed with her tears. "Stop this ridiculous display at once! You do not have sob stories like the rest of them."

The red dragon rested its head on her shoulder. It said nothing, but she could feel its warm breath against her skin. She turned away from the blue dragon, and looked down at the red one. Its eyes, rimmed in gold and flame, were wet as it looked at her.

"You blame yourself," it said. "I've blamed myself too for lots of things. Some of them were my fault, but others weren't."

Her breathing turned into hiccups as she wiped her eyes, her nose. The red dragon made it sound so simple, so plain, so easy. But it wasn't. She couldn't even tell what she was more upset about—that her brother had lain hurt and unmoving on that stage because of her, or because of the things she had lost. One was worse than the other—she knew that at least.

"It happened," the dragon spoke with Zuko's calm voice. "Accept the reality of the things you have done, and move forward. Do not carry them so they poison you. Forgive yourself. It doesn't matter if no one else will forgive you—you are only responsible for your own actions, your own choices."

"That should be easy for you," the blue dragon said. "After all, everything comes so easy to you, doesn't it?"

"Shut up!" Azula hissed as the blue dragon laughed with her voice.

"You don't want to talk anymore—fine! Let's end this."

The dragons braced themselves against her theatre chair. Their mouths opened and flame spewed from their jaws, engulfing Azula entirely as she closed her eyes, flung her hands to her face, and screamed.

"What are you screaming about, child?" It was her father's voice. Azula lowered her arms and gazed around her. She was in the palace, in the throne room. It burned blue like it once had so long ago.

Her father was dressed in the same raiment he had worn when he abandoned her. He must have returned from conquering the Earth Kingdom. With a snap of his fingers, her blue flames disappeared in smoke and ash. Azula fell to her knees and bowed before her father.

"Where is everyone, Azula? Where are the guards, the servants? Why is this palace empty except for you and me?"

Why were they gone? She could hardly remember. "Is it so terrible, being alone with me, Father? I have never disappointed you, I have never failed you. I have even kept the Nation safe for your return."

"As if I would stay here. Don't be silly. I will be seating the throne of Ba Sing Se. But where is everyone here, Azula? Don't make me ask you again."

Sinking deeper to her knees so they were pressed hard against her stomach, she whispered, "I banished them. I couldn't trust them. They were going to betray me just like-"

He raged at her. He told her she was stupid. He told her that no one with a mind like hers was fit for the throne. He told her that something was wrong with her. That she had failed him because it had taken her so long to deal with the Avatar and her brother, that she had not kept Zuko at home, that she had not stopped Zuko from rescuing war prisoners, that she had not done anything right in a long time, and that's what he got when he left someone like her in charge of the throne at home.

"Father, I'll do better, I'll—"

But he was gone, and she was left in the shadows. She stayed, crouching there, for a long time, waiting for her father to come back, to tell her he didn't mean it, not all of it at least.

Then soft hands ran through her hair, tying it back into its top-knot with a bit of red ribbon. "My daughter, my Princess Azula," her mother whispered, "your hair is always so beautiful."

Her mother guided her to her feet, and brought her to her personal chambers. Soft yellow light filled the room from candles dripping wax. Azula sat heavily on the richly carpeted floor, and watched her mother as she prepared her tea.

"Why are you being nice to me?" she asked. "You never were before."

Ursa continued making the tea with a soft clatter of clinking dishes. "I have always loved you, Azula."

"It didn't feel like it." Azula pulled a cushion from behind her and hugged it tightly over her heart, as she hid her face in its depth. If she were alone, she would scream into this cushion and no one would hear.

"Alright, if you say so." Ursa approached and handed a steaming cup of tea to her, but Azula shook her head, and she heard her set it down somewhere near her. "Maybe it's because you look so sad. Why are you sad, Azula?" Ursa reached for her hand, and smoothed circles into her skin with her thumb. "Who has hurt you so much?"

"You left," Azula said. "You didn't even say goodbye. And then Zuko left with Uncle Iroh. And then he left again. And Mai and Ty Lee left. And then Father left. Everything I did I had done for him, so that he would be proud of me, so he wouldn't treat me like he did Zuko. I had lost all the others because of things I had done for him, and he left me."

"You can't blame the others for leaving you," Ursa said. "They didn't deserve to be treated like that."

"I know," Azula said. "But that doesn't mean it didn't hurt."

She reached for her tea, but the cup was empty.

Then she was outside on the grass, gazing up at the sun without blinking, her vision melting in blues and reds. In the distance, she could hear her brother chanting, "Azula always lies, Azula always lies, Azula always lies—"and it went on and on and on, washing over Azula like the truth.

A shadow fell over her as a figure sat beside her. Her mother's cool hand covered her eyes, blocking the sun, providing relief from its glare that ached and ached and ached.

"What did you lie about this time?" Her voice was reproachful like it always was.

"I don't know," Azula said. "I'm a very good liar, and according to anyone you ask, I lie about everything. You have to be more specific."

"What lies have you told today?"

"I told Zuko that his father wanted him back when I had been tasked to bring him home as a prisoner. It was the easiest way. He wouldn't see the lie because he only wanted to come home. That's all he has ever wanted." And then he left his home again, of his own free will.

In the background, she could still hear Zuko chanting about how she always lied.

"What else," Ursa said as she moved her hand through Azula's hair.

"I lied when I told Father that Zuko had killed the Avatar. I didn't have to do that! I could have taken the credit for myself. Zuko hadn't done anything for me to do that, only choosing me and our family at the last minute. I did all the hard work. Father would have had no reason to be proud of him. So I lied because Zuko still thought his father could give him his honor back. He didn't even know that the only person who could restore his honor was himself. And if all his newfound glory turned to shame, then it would have served him right for lying to me."

"Surely you knew that your father would turn his anger on you for lying about what happened that day?"

Azula shivered as she remembered her father's rage—anger at her lie, anger that she had not finished the job and done it right. But how could she have known that Katara was a healer? The Avatar had been dead in her arms—she had seen it. Her eyes squeezed even more against the sun-glare that seeped through her mother's fingers. "Of course, I knew that father would be angry. Zuko doesn't lie—how could I have known that he had lied?" She paused as Zuko's chants rang like bells through the courtyard. _Azula always lies!_

"What else?" Ursa said.

"That I'm perfect, and beautiful," Azula said. "I know I'm not. But almost isn't good enough, and I had to be." Azula fell silent, and then repeated herself: "I had to be because if I wasn't then I would be treated like Zuko or like you."

"My dear, sweet girl," Ursa murmured. "That must have been so hard for you. What other lies have you told?"

"I lied to the blind girl when I told her that I was a purple platypus bear."

Her mother laughed softly and Azula smiled just as softly. "That doesn't count."

"I can't think of anything else," Azula said after a moment.

Her mother tapped Azula's nose. "You lied on the beach. It was after Zuko made the fire burn into embers. You looked into them, and you said that I had said you were a monster, and that I was right."

Azula laughed. "No, that was the truth. You said I was a monster, and you were right. Unless you're saying the lie was that it hurt-"

"No, Azula." Ursa fell silent for a moment as she traced the eye that had grown in the center of Azula's forehead, before bending to kiss its center. "I knew that wasn't a lie, but the lie is that you said your mother was right in what she said."

Azula scowled. "No, it wasn't a lie! You said that to me. You thought that about me, you said that something was wrong with me. I remember that! I am not crazy!"

"Azula," Ursa said. "Please, listen to me. Maybe even mothers lie when they are sad and they do not know what to do."

"You lied?" Azula sat up, turning to look at her mother properly. Her throat had gone dry, and it was difficult to speak. "You lied, about me?" For the first time, Zuko's voice had vanished, and there was only silence in this moment between them.

"I think I did, and I am so sorry. I should never have hurt you like that. I didn't mean to, but I did." Ursa cradled Azula's cheeks in her palms and kissed her again on the forehead. "For so long you were told that you were a monster that you acted like one. But, Azula, the time for lies is over. You cannot lie about your own nature. You are not a monster so you must stop acting like one. No more cruelty, no more selfishness, because I know that is not who you are—I believe in you, in the beautiful princess you still can be. You must accept this truth about yourself, Azula, and act upon it, or you will never find happiness."

"I'm like Zuko," Azula said as she held her mother's hand against her face. "I'm never happy."

Her mother smiled down at her. "Then you will never find peace."

The sun rose higher and her mother shimmered like one of those mirages.

"No, don't go," Azula screamed, but Ursa was gone and she was left alone. After a few moments, Azula rose on shaking legs and walked towards the palace, she walked until she entered her father's throne room, and she walked until she saw herself kneeling before him.

She remembered this day, she remembered it well, and her knees ached as she looked up at him from her position on the floor.

"Azula," Ozai said as he rose from his throne and walked towards her through the fire. "I have called you here today because you are the only one I can trust, the only one who has not failed me. You are not weak, like your brother. You have not disappointed me. You have not shown me dishonor. You have accomplished every task I have set before you." He paused then, as he stood over her. "Your uncle is a traitor, and your brother is a failure. Bring them to me."

Azula from before, the one who had heard this speech and thrilled to be given something so important, to be set apart from the misdoings of her disgraced brother and uncle, had assured her father that she would not fail as she had departed with the royal retinue that very day. It had been her pleasure to do it, too, even though that pleasure had long disappeared.

This Azula rose to her feet, and she passed through the flames guarding her father's throne so that she stood before him.

"What are you doing?" he asked of her.

"Doing something that I should have done a long time ago," Azula said. "I'm not your weapon, I am not your prodigy, and I am certainly not your messenger. I'm your daughter, and I'm Ursa's daughter, and I'm Zuko's sister. And once, a long time ago, I may have even been Mai and Ty Lee's friend before I ruined whatever flimsy thing we had between us." She pointed her finger at him. "You can't do this to me anymore!"

Her father reached up to her, gripping her hand so that he would have interrupted her chi if she had actually been trying to firebend. He stood to his feet, he towered over her. "You dare defy me, Azula?" And then he threw his head back, laughing at her. "How are you going to do that without your bending? You useless thing!"

Orange flames erupted from his fist as he released her.

Azula rubbed the hurt in her wrist as she glared at him. "You're right. I am useless to you. Never again are you going to use me for your own ambitions."

The room began to fill with a bright light that made Ozai's flames dim in comparison. Ozai flung his arms to shield his eyes from it. "What is that on your forehead!" he said. "It's blinding me—Azula, stop this at once, I command you."

Azula turned away from her father, and put her hand to the spot her mother had once kissed.

The throne room was engulfed in darkness.

Someone lit a lamp, and Azula found herself seated on the floor at her mother's feet. Ursa combed Azula's hair with a gold comb, inlaid with jade.

"What beautiful hair you have," Ursa murmured as she gathered it into her fist and let it flow through her fingers like water. Then she dragged the comb from the crown of Azula's head, following the curve of her skull, and down the shallow channel of her spine, so long her hair had become.

Azula rolled her eyes. "I know that my hair is beautiful. I don't want to talk about that." She stopped, suddenly embarrassed, suddenly unsure. "I want to talk about what we were talking about earlier, on the grass. The—thing you said about me not being a monster."

Ursa shook her head and kept combing. "I don't remember that, Azula. Are you sure? That doesn't sound like something I would say at all."

"Of course I'm sure!" Azula said. "I mean, I know it didn't happen, not really. I know that I'm dreaming, I know that you're not really here, but you're the same dream version of you that has been with me for all this time. We can still talk about this."

Ursa guided Azula to the mirror, and framed her face with her palms. "Look at you, Azula. Look at your beautiful hair, your beautiful face. Why do you trouble yourself with these imaginations?"

Azula swore as she turned and ripped the comb from her mother's grasp, throwing it against the mirror so that it shattered into pieces at their feet. She opened her mouth to reiterate what she had said before, but she never had a chance before she woke, gasping as water filled her mouth, as she thrashed in a cold tub of water.

Water splashed, overflowed onto someone's feet who also swore in surprise and shock as Azula finally found her footing and surged upwards. Her hair hung thick and wet behind her back, and her eyes flashed as she surveyed her surroundings.

She was awake now, really awake, no longer in a shifting, fevered dream. She was still in the South Pole. She recognized the furs on the floor, and the way her breath came out in a cloud.

The man, whose name she did not remember, had his hands up like she was some dangerous, wild thing. He was asking her if she knew who she was, if she knew where she was.

These things were unimportant as her eyes took him in. Water Tribe, of course, though he had removed his heavy outer coat. It was draped on the pile of furs behind him.

But he wasn't just a healer—he was a warrior too because belted to his waist was a knife. She moved towards him, fast and quick, and he wasn't prepared for her to reach for the weapon. She spoke to him as she did so. "I need to borrow this for just a moment." It was in her hand even as he was bending water from the tub to stop her.

She dropped quickly to her knees, and the wave washed over her head. She gathered her wet hair into her fist and slashed it with the knife. It fell in damp clumps against her shoulders and down her back. The crooked fringe of it tickled the back of her neck as her skin chilled with goosebumps from the cold air. "Now you'll have to find something else to say, Mother," she snarled, forgetting that she was not alone.

There was a long pause as she waited to see if she would see her mother. Water seeped around her knees, and out of the corner of her eye she saw that the waterbender had lowered his arms and was watching her.

"Are you feeling alright?" he said.

Azula swallowed around the lump in her throat and the shame in her stomach as she rose to her feet. She held the knife out towards him. It lay flat in the palm of her hand. "I've never been better," she said. "Where are my friends?"

He ignored the question as he offered her his thick coat. She took it, and quickly put it on her. It was too big for her, falling in folds to her feet, but it was warm.

"I imagine you feel even better with that." He started laughing, but in a kind way. "You might regret your haircut. It gets cold down here. Everything helps." He ran his own hand through his hair, which was tied back with a strip of leather.

"I'm sure I'll live," Azula said. "Where are the others? I wish to speak with them."

"I think you should walk with me. I will bring you to Chief Hakoda, who will explain everything."

Something soured in Azula's stomach, but she agreed. As they made their way there, he asked if she remembered his name, and when she didn't, he explained that he was Master Pakku.

"From the Northern Water Tribe," Azula supplied, remembering a little.

"Yes," he said. "It was very foolish of you to act like you were not injured. That is how people die, you know."

Azula shrugged. "It didn't feel right to ask for help."

"It is always okay to ask for help when you need it. I trust you won't do something so foolish again. We almost lost you."

"I always make it," Azula said. Then she frowned. "How long have I been—unwell?"

"For nearly six weeks," Master Pakku said gravely.

Azula stopped, shaking her head. It didn't feel real. "It didn't feel like six weeks," she said.

"No I don't suppose it would," Master Pakku said as he gently guided her to keep walking. "But much has happened, and Chief Hakoda said that if you were to wake, you should be brought to him immediately."

That meant bad news waited for her. Bad news about Mai and Ty Lee and Suki, Azula realized, as she walked through the tribe and saw no sign of them. They were gone.

They had left her.

She bowed her head as the realization struck. It hurt. Of course it hurt that she had been left behind again.

They arrived in short order to Chief Hakoda's dwelling. There was a fire, and he sat beside it, working a bit of leather with delicate tools. When he saw them, he gestured for Master Pakku to leave. Then, when they were alone, he looked at Azula. "How are you feeling?" he asked her kindly as his eyes lingered over her cut hair.

She folded her arms in front of her chest. "I'm fine. But I gather that the others who came with me are no longer here, which I assume you're working up to telling me about, eventually. If you're worried how I'll react to such news—don't worry, I'll take it calmly."

"You are correct." He walked to a small table and pulled a scroll from the many parchments that littered its surface. "We received this letter from Zuko's ministers. It appears that there is trouble at home, and the others went to address the situation."

Azula frowned as she read the letter. Someone had attempted to assassinate Zuko? People had formed something called the New Ozai Society—like they actually would rather have Ozai back on the throne instead of Zuko? Those fools, those idiots, those traitors.

"I must leave immediately," Azula said. "A member of the royal family supporting Zuko would be invaluable."

At least Chief Hakoda had the decency to look ashamed of himself as he said, "I don't believe that would be wise. Your friends agreed. They thought it best if you stay here until the situation is neutralized."

Azula pursed her lips. "Oh, I think I see how it is." They didn't trust her—after all this time, they were still afraid she would side with the New Ozai Society. It burned that after everything she had done, it was still not enough. She could have left them behind at any time, but she hadn't! Then she remembered the red dragon. It didn't matter what they thought, it only mattered what she did. "It is very kind of them to be so concerned for my health, but quite unnecessary as I am finally well, and I wish to do my part in keeping the throne safe from these—" she couldn't say the word she was thinking in polite company.

"I understand," Chief Hakoda said, "but unfortunately, I must again say that they wished you to stay here."

Azula smiled at him, quite pleasantly. "Did my brother order that I be kept here? Am I prisoner of the Water Tribe?"

"No. You are our guest." Chief Hakoda looked amused, and Azula realized that he knew what she was going to say, and she also knew that he would not stop her. But still, they had their parts to play.

"And I thank you for your hospitality, but I really must be going now. My brother needs me." Even if she didn't have her firebending, Zuko didn't think like these people would think. He needed her because she would always be one step ahead. "If it would help ease your conscious, let me send a letter by hawk to my brother, detailing the route I intend to take. If he decides to come after me with the Avatar and that flying bison, all the better for me. I'm tired of walking everywhere."

Chief Hakoda nodded. "I will not keep you here against your wishes. That would sit unpleasantly with me. Very well, write your letter, and I will make sure that preparations are made for your departure."

"Thank you, Chief Hakoda," Azula said as she bowed. "You have my greatest thanks."

She took her paper Chief Hakoda offered her, and thought about what to say. The truth would be best, obviously, but she felt there should be something more.

Finally, she shook her head, and began to write. She decided to keep it simple, only telling him that she was on her way and detailing the route she would be taking. She wanted to ask about Mai and Ty Lee and Suki, but refrained. They would talk later—if they wanted to speak to her.

She rolled the parchment and put it in the tub strapped to the hawk's back. "Fly swift and sure," she told it.

"He will be fine, you know," Chief Hakoda said. "I can think of no one more resilient than your brother."

Azula did not take her eyes from the sky as she watched the hawk grow smaller and smaller. "Neither can I."


	44. Azula Alone

For the first time since she could remember, Azula was alone. The craft that Chief Hakoda had procured for her was for a single sailor. She had looked at it, one eyebrow raised, and asked him, "Exactly how do you expect me to survive in that thing?"

"You don't have to go if you don't want," Chief Hakoda had replied, grinning.

She knew this trick of course. Pretend to give in but do not give sufficient resources for someone to accomplish whatever it was they wanted to do. She had done it plenty of times to Mai and Ty Lee and even Zuko.

But Chief Hakoda showed her how to sail it, and, the very next day, with her head wrapped in a scarf to protect it from the cold, she was off. It would have been easier and quicker if she were a waterbender, but she wasn't. In fact, she wasn't a bender at all.

The days were long, and she was afraid she would run out of water so she drank and ate sparingly. The previous trips where she had been up in the rigging, tending the sails, reading the stars in the sky, and earning her sea legs had prepared her well for the journey, but she found herself exhausted and hungry and thirsty.

Though it was not befitting a princess to exert so much physical exertion or manual labor, Azula welcomed the distraction because it meant she did not think of her mother, or of Zuko, or of the New Ozai Society. She only thought of survival, and how the salt stung her torn nails when the rope had been ripped from her hand by a particularly vicious head wind.

Per Chief Hakoda's suggestion, she did not cut straight across the ocean toward the Fire Nation territories. There won't be enough food, he had warned. And if something happens to the boat, there will be no one to help. She had snarled in frustration, but she knew he was right, even though she hated it. She could not afford to become lost at sea, and so she followed the coastline of the Earth Kingdom in her little boat. It's the route Aang and the others had taken, Chief Hakoda had also told her, like that would somehow make her feel better about the longer journey.

It was the route she told Zuko she had taken in her letter to him, and that was part of the reason why she did not choose to risk the faster journey by cutting across the open seas.

But she did miss the others, and despite herself, she would shield her eyes from the glaring sun and scan the clouds for a flying bison, sometimes catching her breath when she saw something that could be Appa, and sighing when it turned out to be just some cloud.

She reasoned with herself: of course they would not come for her because they had not received her letter yet, of course they would not come for her because it was just too dangerous, because the heart of the palace was squirming with assassins, various kinds of poisons, and all manner of unpleasant things.

Besides, she had only just set sail. She hadn't even passed the Airbender Temple yet. It was unreasonable for her to look for them so soon—and yet, she did.

But she just wanted to go home. That wasn't too terrible, to want that. She had been gone for such a long time, nearly a year by her calculations.

She took great care to avoid Kyoshi Island, even though it made sense to go there. After all, Ty Lee was probably there, and something pulled at her as the island became more than just a shadow on the horizon. Her hand stilled on the tiller, her fingers lax around the wood. The sail flapped at her indecision. She could go and meet with Ty Lee, assuming she was still there. Assuming she hadn't already left with the rest of the Kyoshi Warriors.

The wood jarred in her hand, until she finally shook herself. Azula did not have time. She had to return to the Fire Nation soon, and quickly. And besides, there was the sea serpent. For her part, Azula had had quite enough of nearly drowning. She headed northward, and soon, the coast of the Earth Kingdom came in sight.

All she had to do was follow it, until she came to the river that poured into the ocean. She would not be able to see Crescent Island from the coast, but once she saw that river, she knew she would need to head west, and follow the stepping stones of islands until she came to the harbor, and then that would lead her to the heart of the Nation, the palace.

Her heart swelled, and she rubbed her wrist against her eyes.

She would be home.

Barely resting, she sailed hard until she ran out of food and water, and she had to make port at a small harbor. She tied a strip of cloth over her forehead, hiding the eye she had received in the spirit world. She didn't know if people here knew what kind of benders utilized the eye, but she also did not want to have people asking her about it either.

The sun and salt had already faded the cloth of her clothes and they were barely recognizable as Water Tribe. It was just like when she had first left the Palace—she could have been anybody or nobody.

It was even funnier, she thought, because with her hair cut as short as Zuko's, her appearance had become even more ambiguous.

In the distance, she could see what appeared to be a large swamp stretching eastward. The foilage was a dense green, and a wind blew the smell of wet mud and rotting vegetation her way. Putting her hand over her nose, she approached the only merchant she could see. The wood he used to display his fare was warped from the water, bleached from the sun. A striped, faded canopy propped up with sticks that weren't buried deep enough in the sand shaded his face. A brisk wind would bring the whole thing down. "I don't have any money," she said. "Do you have work in exchange for food and water?" She gestured toward the haphazard canopy that was already beginning to tremble. "Perhaps you would like me to secure your covering so it won't be blown away by a half-hearted breeze."

The man looked up at her from under his conical hat. His skin was peeling from being in the sun too long. The fish he sold looked small and unappetizing. He coughed thick water from his lungs. This man was old, Azula realized, older than she had initially thought. "Don't need fixing," he declared. "Besides, there's not enough work for one person, why would I need help?"

She wanted to say it was because he was old. She wanted to say that it was very obvious his booth needed every kind of fixing. But she said none of those things. "Very well. I do apologize for taking up your time. I'm sure that I'll be able to find another merchant, by and by, who is in need of my services." She had only taken a few steps when the old man called her back.

He pointed to her little skiff tied neatly to the dilapidated harbor. "That your boat?"

Azula's eyes narrowed. "It is."

"Lost my boat some time back," the old man said. "There was a storm, a nasty one, but you brave those things if you have a family to feed, which I do. But I lost my boat and I was lucky enough to wash up on shore with my life. The crashed smithereens of my boat washed up with me of course, gave me some nasty splinters."

Azula tried to keep her focus. "That sounds very unfortunate."

He nodded. "But as I'm saying—you have a mighty pretty boat right there. I'll give you all this here fish in exchange for it."

"Well, I don't think that's hardly fair," Azula said. "My little boat is worth more than several meals that I won't even be able to eat before it spoils."

"And it's Water Tribe made too," the man said, nodding enthusiastically. "Best made boats there ever was was made by the Water Tribe. They really know how to make something that floats. Bet if I had been in a Water Tribe boat, I wouldn't-a sunk in the storm."

Azula had her sincere doubts about that. You didn't fight the water. You just hoped you survived it. The man should consider himself lucky, all things consider. "So again, I ask, why would I make such an unfair trade?"

"You're hungry. Can see it in your eyes. Probably haven't had a decent meal that wasn't seal jerky for a while. And you're desperate. I can see you looking at me, thinking, hurry up old man this young person has things to do. Well—" and he breathed out a long huff of laughter. "We old folks are the way we are, child. We need just as much as you. I'd offer a fair price for your boat, but I'm broke as you. Just got these fishes to my name, and you got a boat to yours. So what do you say, huh?"

Azula put her hand over her stomach which was so hungry she had stopped feeling the pain of it, though the lightheadedness remained. But she didn't need the boat. It would make things easier, it would make things faster. But she could also learn how to fish on her own and just leave this old man behind. After all, she had felled the walls of Ba Sing Se, surely she could manage learning how to fish.

"You're really trying to make it as a fisherman without a fishing boat?" she asked.

The man shrugged, raised his hands palms upward."Sometimes a person's luck just isn't that good."

Azula knew what she wanted to do. She wanted to laugh in this man's face and then she wanted to be on her way. She also desperately wanted something to eat. It would be easy to make the deal, it would be even easier to come back in the middle of the night and steal the boat back again.

She could do these things. She could do anything she wanted. She was still Azula, Princess of the Fire Nation, after all.

But she thought back to the dreams. They weren't real, even if they had felt real. It meant that whatever her mother had told her were things she had already been thinking about.

And maybe it was time to listen to somebody that wasn't her father. Besides, she wouldn't look forward explaining to Zuko how she'd cheated an old man, or how she hadn't helped an old man when she could.

After all, she could walk just fine. It was just her bending that was gone from her.

She rolled her eyes, already hating her decision because of how terribly inconvenient and hard it would be. "Very well. The boat for enough fishes that won't go bad before I can eat them."

"Come back next month, young thing," he told her, "and you'll see a real fish merchant."

"I'm sure I will if I ever bother coming back this way again. Which believe me, I won't. I'm only here because circumstances forced me to come here," Azula said. "So long, old man."

So she set out on foot, leaving the boat neatly tied by the dock. Hopefully, Chief Hakoda wouldn't be too terribly upset by her losing it, but considering she had lost it for what some would say was a good cause, she was sure he wouldn't mind.

If anyone would be minding, it would be her.

Oh yes, she thought, as she sat down on a rock and pulled off her boot so she could dump out the sand and grit and pebbles, it would most definitely be her.

At night, when she passed a grove of trees, she crafted another bow and arrow with which she used to hunt small game. Instead of her firebending, she used her spark rocks to get a fire going at night.

She walked for days. She walked past what looked to be an Earth Kingdom fort. That she headed off into the forest to avoid, costing her even more time. Daily, she found herself looking toward the clear skies, but she still did not see Appa.

After she found her way back to the coast, she was able to barter her way on another fishing boat. They made port on another coastal village, where someone named Haru met them. They invited her to stay the night, but she declined. She walked on her sea legs until she could walk no more, and she slept in the dark, without lighting a fire, until the sun woke her.

She walked some more, her feet hurting despite how tough they had become. She walked until she reached the mouth of the river she should have seen from her little skiff. She wouldn't have cared it was bloating and swollen from the melting snows if she still had the boat—but now, looking down at it, hands braced her knees, she definitely did care.

It was supposed to have been shallow enough to swim so that she could keep walking towards the trading center just a little farther north. She had heard things about the docks there, the type of crew they attracted. But she didn't care. Those kind of people would have boats, and she would be close enough to promise them a reward of the finest gold straight from the Fire Nation treasury.

But she couldn't swim this. She would need to follow its course southward, back towards the way she had come, in order to find a point shallow enough to cross. That or just sit around waiting for a ship to come along.

And she wasn't going to do that. She couldn't just sit and wait.

She spent a few moments glaring at the water, willing it to become shallow, but it ignored her. It rushed on, capped in white, and tumbled into the ocean.

Very well, Azula thought. If that was the way it was going to be—and she followed its course, going deeper into Earth Kingdom territory, away from the Fire Nation, away from home and its den of liars and thieves and traitors.

Azula struggled against the exhaustion that hung onto her like something heavy, like Mai's brother Tom-Tom had before she warned Mai to remove that child when he had tried to cling to her legs. The threat had been left unsaid, and Mai had scooped him up in her arms. "My apologies, Princess," she had said softly.

And Azula had scoffed.

Azula stopped, and closed her eyes. Her arms hung loosely at her sides, her neck craned backwards as she let the sun slant across her face until her closed lids bled into colors.

Mai had made sure that Tom-Tom was never in the same room with Azula again. Azula had not even realized how large Tom-Tom had grown until she had seen Sokka carrying him.

And even then, she had not cared because they would not trade a king for a baby brother. It had been the right call, but maybe the wrong choice.

Azula wondered if that was when Mai had slowly begun to drift from her, to choose Zuko over her.

Maybe she knew that Zuko would have made the trade if he had been there instead of her.

He knew what it was like, after all. He had traded his king, his father for a vision that only he and a handful of others could see.

Azula forced herself to keep walking. Once, as she glanced towards her right, she saw her mother walking beside her in her long royal gowns, hands tucked neatly in her sleeves.

"Did you know, Azula, that this was the path I took when I heard that Zuko had been banished?" She smiled at Azula. "Except, I was on the other side." She pointed with her long arm and a slim finger across the river. "I did not know where he would go, but I knew that he had a ship, and so my goal was to go immediately to the river. I thought, if only I could meet him there, he would see me and he would stop. And I would see my son again." She laughed gently to herself. "A foolish hope, I suppose. He wasn't like you. He wasn't forced to keep to the coast."

"You could have just sent him a messenger hawk," Azula said. "He probably would have been able to find someone to fetch you from the Earth Kingdom."

Ursa laughed. "I did send a hawk. I'm sure you know that communications are very closely monitored—they are even now." Ursa spared a very knowing glance towards Azula. "My message was discovered and then, eventually, so was I. Don't you think it's funny that I would be alive if I hadn't tried to send a hawk to Zuko?"

"No," Azula said sourly, "I don't think it's funny at all. Who was it that father sent after you?"

"A combustion bender," Ursa said. "He had an eye, not quite like yours." Ursa reached for Azula forehead, for the band of cloth she still wore. She slipped it upwards, over the dome of her skull, so that the eye Azula had gained in the spirit world was clearly visible. She pressed her two fingers against it.

Azula flinched her eyes closed as she guessed which bender her father had sent after her mother. He was known for being discrete. He was known for not hesitating to kill someone like her mother that other people would find distasteful. "I heard he died if that makes you feel better. Apparently got blown up by his own bending." Azula laughed not with joy but with something else. "They can't control their power. They're weak." Which was another reason why the eye on her forehead was an insult. She couldn't bend but she'd have the eye of the combustion bender. Thanks spirit world. Thanks a lot for absolutely nothing.

"Watch where you're stepping," Ursa said softly. "The dirt is treacherous from the rising and the lowering of the water as the snows melt from the mountain ranges."

"How do you know?" Azula asked.

"Because it's where I fell when I was running from my assassin," Ursa said.

It was at that moment that Azula's foot twisted under her as the dirt gave way and she tumbled into the rushing river with a splash. The current tugged her down the path she had already come, and Azula struggled to catch herself, to stop falling before she was sent back to the ocean where she would be crushed by the combined weight of the waters.

Her flailing hands gripped on the rushes that grew on the opposite bank, and she held to it fast even though the stems splintered, biting into her palms. But it gave her the few minutes she needed for her scrabbling feet to find purchase on the bottom, for her to push her way through to the other side, to lie panting on the rocky bank, stones still warm from the sun.

Water pooled from her mouth and ran from her nose as she struggled to catch her breath. Above her, clouds scudded in front of the sun and there was a distant boom of thunder. "This cannot actually be happening," Azula said, as she hauled herself to her knees, dripping.

"There is a cave," Ursa said, appearing beside her. Her clothes and hair were dry, and she gazed down at Azula with a smile. "Look." And she pointed again towards a mountain jagged with crags and crumbling with rocks.

"Oh, there's a cave," Azula repeated mockingly, as she scrambled the rest of the way to her feet. She could not put weight on her right foot because of how it had twisted, and so she hobbled forward. If she had had her bow, she would have used it as a makeshift crutch, but the river had washed it from her.

She did not feel safe walking under the mountain's shadow, and she shivered as the storm began to roll in from the east. Azula almost missed the entrance to the cave, considering that it was completely blocked by rubble, and how her eyes were still streaming from her fall in the river. She only realized because Ursa had laughed at her. She looked again, and this time saw a little creature slip its way through the rocks, scampering off into the forest to look for something to eat.

"What happened to the entrance?" Azula said. "You can't expect me to dig for shelter."

Ursa gazed upwards at the sky. "You will need to work fast if you want to beat the storm, Azula."

Azula grumbled as she limped towards the rock. Scorch marks burned the surface, as if it had been blasted by a combustion bender who didn't know how to control the fire. It didn't make her want to dig any faster, but Azula had no choice—not really. She looked back over her shoulder at her mother, who only smiled encouragingly at her.

She dug for what felt like hours and, by the time she had made a hole big enough for her to crawl through, she was exhausted. The rock scraped her palms and her knees until she was able to collapse on to the cave floor, breathing heaving gasps of air as she waited for her hands to stop hurting, for her feet to stop hurting. They didn't, and Azula wondered when it would—if the pain would ever stop.

The rain pattered heavily against the mountain, and Azula dragged herself further inwards, away from the chill and the spray of water that managed to find its way through the hole she had made. She cupped her hands in front of her mouth to pant hot breath into her palms to warm her up. If she had her firebending, she could have made a lovely fire instead of huddling and shivering in the cold like some pathetic child.

As it was, her spark rocks were wet, and besides, she had no kindling to build a fire.

She turned around on her side and nearly fell backwards when she saw that she was not alone.

Another thing was in the cave with her, but it wasn't moving. It was just—still. It was just there, as if it had been waiting to be found.

Azula stared at it for a long time, waiting for her eyes to adjust. If she had her firebending—she shook the thought from her again. She didn't, and she never would again no matter what the appearance of the eye on her forehead meant.

As the shadows dimmed into something not quite so dark, a profile emerged. Hollowed eyes, a mouth jutted open as if it hoped to speak. Brittle hair clinging to bone fingers, leaving bare patches along the curved skull. The tatters of a Fire Nation robe.

Azula could not breathe as her hands shook. She looked back over her shoulder for her mother, but she was gone.

She forced herself to look at it again. She forced herself to crawl forward, to touch the red cloth so that it turned to dust against her fingertips.

In the skeleton's lap was a single, slender hairpiece bearing the Fire Nation flame. The ornament of the Fire Lady. Her mother had worn it almost always. She had worn it when she had served tea to Grandfather Azulon. Azula would recognize it anywhere.

Azula leaned back on her haunches and stared at it. Her eyes stung. Her mouth swelled. "Why did you bring me here?" Her voice echoed softly between the arching rock walls, and she listened closely for Ursa to answer, but she did not.

Azula's eyes fell again on the corpse. There was a little, moldering satchel tied at her waist, and Azula reached over to untie it from her.

It held a pack of letters. The paper was thin, delicate, and she touched them lightly as she could. They were held together with a thin line of twine. She undid that too. The first was addressed to Zuko, just like the second was, and the third, and the fourth.

She stopped looking after that. She tied up the twine, she put the packet back in the satchel, she slipped the satchel onto her own belt.

Zuko would want to read them.

Azula looked at her mother again. She and Zuko had known she was probably dead. It was the only explanation.

And yet-

She had imagined meeting her mother again until she had grown up and learned better. The fantasies came back now. Her mother returning home. Her mother embracing her like she embraced Zuko. Her mother wiping away the hurt she had left as she told her that she liked her just as much as she liked Zuko.

The corpse stared back at her.

The satchel of letters was heavy against her hip.

How many times would Azula have to be somebody's messenger? She dashed to her feet, paced the floor furtively as thunder banged against the rock. Her ankle pained her, but she didn't care.

Her mother had left nothing for her. There was always nothing for her.

Why did she care? She had known this since she was small.

She paused as she heard her mother's voice. Sometimes, mothers lied.

But that was just a dream. That didn't mean anything at all.

Everything that had taken part between them these past months wasn't real. Her mother wasn't a ghost and she was just a girl who saw things that weren't there sometimes, and it was easy to believe that maybe her mother could have said those things to her someday—if she were only alive, which she wasn't.

Her foot panged her, and she sat back down on the floor, back turned toward the thing that had once been her mother, and rocked back and forth with her knees drawn close to her chest, her arms wrapped around her shins.

"You're angry at me," Ursa said.

Azula sighed and closed her eyes. "Why do you care if I'm angry at your or not? It was always too late for us." She waited for her mother to deny it, but she was gone. Again. She was always leaving, just like Zuko, just like Ozai.

She heard herself on the beach, asking Zuko whom he was angry with. Was it her? Her father? Zuko's stuttered and murmured no's as he realized he was angry at himself. It had disappointed her at the time. What was the use of being angry at yourself when you were the one who made the hard choice? No one had forced Zuko to do anything, so why was he mad at himself?

She fell back against hard rock floor, her hands pillowing her head. She knew who she was angry at. She was angry at her mother for not even writing her a single letter. She was angry at Ozai for realizing that Ursa would try to reunite with Zuko when he was banished too. It would have been too dangerous to have two banished royals unite against him. They would have to be permanently separated. So why not kill Ursa when there was still a chance that Zuko could be the heir he always wanted?

How could he let her live? How could her mother not have realized how stupid she was being for trying to meet with Zuko? Hadn't she already lost enough? Was the risk of seeing him again worth her life?

She wondered if her father was ashamed. If he hated himself, if he hated the choices he had made. If he was angry at himself, like Zuko had been.

Azula looked back at the corpse. She should bring it with her, but she couldn't. Not by herself. She would need to return and let Zuko know where to find it. She would need to block the entrance, again, so that nothing could disturb the corpse.

Exhaustion hung heavily to her but she could not sleep. The rock was too hard, the rain too loud, her mother too present. Soft hands cradled her aching head in her soft lap. Hands moved through her hair. Azula opened her eyes to see her mother's face gazing down at her.

"You cut your hair," Ursa said. She seemed sad. "You always had such lovely hair."

Even cutting it all off wouldn't stop her from saying it. Azula nodded anyway. What was the use of fighting for more from a dead mother?

"Why?"

"It seemed like the thing to do," Azula said. "I wanted you to say things that you never had before." She closed her eyes against the memory of seeing her mother for the first time long after she was gone. The day that should have been her coronation. _I love you, I do_.

"I've told you that before," Ursa said. "I've always told you that I loved you. You just don't remember."

"That's not true." Azula shook her head.

"It could be," Ursa said. "You only need to think of me and say, she loved me, and it will be true. There will be no one to say that you're wrong. Every mother loves her child."

Azula said nothing. The tears were coming, and if she spoke, her voice would break.

"It's alright to cry," Ursa said. "I wept when I left."

"Because you would never see Zuko again."

"Because of the things I had done, and the consequences that must be paid." Ursa's hands stilled in what remained of Azula's hair. "It wasn't easy, doing what I did."

"I know," Azula said. "I was there."

Ursa hushed her softly. "You must sleep. You still have much to do."

Azula slept, and did not wake until the rain had stopped and a weak sun filtered through the cracks in the rock. She woke staring at the skeleton. She woke with the bag digging into her hip.

She did not get up. Thirst carved a hollow channel through her throat, and she did not get up. The sun moved beyond the mountains and shadow filled the cave.

She did not get up.

"Are you ill?" Ursa asked.

Azula thought of her time in the spirit world, of her time unconscious and comatose in the South Pole. How there was always something wrong with her. "You know that I am," she said.

Ursa put her knuckles gently against Azula's forehead. "Rest then. But tomorrow you must leave. You must return to Zuko. He needs you now, more than ever."

"Must I?" Azula said.

"You must."

"Why?"

"Because he is your brother, and he is in trouble, and you must help him. Don't you want to help your brother? You've done it many times before."

Azula did not know if she wanted to help him or not. She only knew that she did not want to get up, and that her ankle pained her, and that no one had come for her. She bit her lip.

Morning came. Her mother leaned over her, the shadow rooted in the skeletal feet. "Get up, my love. There is so much to do. There are traitors to punish. There are assassinations to stop. Or do you wish your brother to share the same fate as me?"

Azula thought about that. She thought about how she had stood on one of those flying ships and laughed as she declared she would be the only child.

Azula forced herself into a sitting position. Grit clung to her cheek, and she brushed it away with the palm of her hand. "Why do you only care about him?" She glared at the corpse. "Why don't you care about me at all?"

There was no answer. She looked away from the husk that had once been her mother. Now there never would be an answer.

She remembered the dream with the dragons. The blue dragon that had been her, that had been so cruel, as Azula had always been. The red dragon that had spoken like her brother.

How he had wept. How gently he had spoken to her.

He would always be his mother's favorite, especially now that they knew Ursa was dead. There was nothing Azula could do to change that. It would always be too late.

But she could do at least one thing.

Azula climbed slowly to her feet, testing her weight on her injured ankle. It only ached a little.

She bent down and plucked the hairpiece from her mother's lap. It was tarnished, crusted with dirt. She put it in her pack anyway.

She stood in the center of the cave, and her heart cracked. The tears came, and she cried. She cried as she crawled through the rubble, blinded in the sunlight. She cried when her hands kept dropping the chunks of stone as she sealed the cave so that nothing could disturb her mother's body, and she cried from exhaustion and hunger and grief when night fell again and she was still fashioning her mother's tomb.

She slept. When the sun woke her, she crawled to the river. She stuck her head into its rushing depths. It was cold, and it woke her completely. Her face dripped as she stood to her feet, the satchel secured at her waist, and she resumed her journey, alone.

She no longer looked to the sky for that flying bison. She would have to do this by herself, as she did everything else.

It was unfair to think this way, she thought, but it was so easy because Mai and Ty Lee and Suki had come as babysitters, not people who actually wanted to help her.

She had been alone her whole life. Once, she would have thought that was a sign of strength, but now she knew her solitude was just something that made her sad and scared.

Like she had been in the throne room. Her clammy skin had been cast in blue flame. She had sent everyone away, convinced they would try to kill her, or they would betray her like Mai and Ty Lee, or that they would just leave her anyway.

She didn't want to feel like that again. She had lost so much because of that emptiness burned inside of her, always lit in blue, like it was her heart.

She wondered what would have happened if she had acted differently when her father had left her behind, if she had taken the time to make real friendships, if she had known that fear hadn't been the only way. Of course, she had thought that love and kindness were foolish things because of what she had seen of her mother and of Zuko, but she had been a child then and had understood as a child.

She knew better now.

She could only hope it was not too late—and if it was for Mai and Ty Lee, they were not the only people in the world. Perhaps she could make new friends even though she didn't know how. She had never learned.

But she missed them. She missed Mai's shiny black hair and Ty Lee's long braid. She missed Mai's sighs and Ty Lee's merry laugh. She missed the way Ty Lee's eyes had been kind, sometimes, when she was not being as cunning as Azula.

She missed the way Ty Lee had stood beside her, even after everything she had done. How she had believed in her as much as Zuko had. How she had held her hand.

She missed her.

The journey was long. Her clothes grew looser around her, and she had to belt her sash more tightly.

She spent her nights and early mornings cleaning and polishing her mother's hair piece. It was so tarnished and dirty that she did not believe it would ever look as it once had. Her bitter work split her nails, made her arm ache, twisted knots into her shoulder.

Sometimes she thought she saw her mother, but it was always just the light of the moon. Had she left her mother behind in the tomb in more ways than one? The thought made everything hurt more. She wished her brother were here. He should have been the one to find their mother. Surely, Ursa's thoughts were of him when she died. It would have only been right, it would have only been fair if it had been Zuko who found her.

When her thoughts tended in that direction, Azula put the hairpiece away and thought about what she would do when she arrived at the palace. She would first have a luxurious bath and a royal hair combing—at which time she remembered her hair was still mostly gone, but that didn't matter. She could still have one, if she wanted one.

Then, after that, she would change into clothes that were hers, that fit, that were actually soft against her skin because they were made that way, not because they had been worn that way, made smooth by too much travel.

At night, when she couldn't sleep, she spent the hours holding Zuko's letters, tempted to read them, to pretend they had been addressed to her. But something always held her back, and then something snapped in the nearby forest, and her head jerked up. She stowed the letters inside the satchel, and stood to her full height.

Belatedly, she realized she had no weapon to defend herself. She had no bending. But she could still fight.

Her hands clenched into fists. If they wanted her, they could come and get it. If they wanted her mother's hairpiece, the only item of value left to her, they could try, and they would fail.

The fire flickered at her feet, smoking because she had not made it as well as she could have. Her mouth only parted slightly in surprise when she recognized Mai's father stepping into the light.

"We've been waiting for you, Princess Azula. We were hoping to meet you on the water," Ukano said. He bowed, perfunctory, as he held the parchment she had sent to Zuko towards her. Azula's eyes narrowed, and she heard the whisper of her mother's voice: they monitored the communications. It was how her father had found her mother. It was how she had died.

And now they had done the same to her. Her breath caught, and she said nothing even though Ukano gave her a chance to respond.

"We thought you would be here sooner." He straightened. There was a look on his face she did not like. "We have missed you—and your father."

"Of course you have," Azula said. "We are easily missed."

Ukano nodded, and Azula watched him carefully. She should have expected that the New Ozai Society would seek her out, now that she was alone. But she hadn't, and she wondered why. Was her cunning leaving her just as her bending had? If so, what use would Zuko have for her? Did Mai know her father was involved? She probably suspected—Mai wasn't stupid after all.

Ukano looked at her, as if he expected her to say more, as if he expected her not to denounce them as traitors.

But she was their princess, and they were expecting her to act like it.

"So you've been intercepting Zuko's communications," Azula said as she sat down beside the fire. When Ukano went to join her, she cleared her throat and he hesitated before finally standing back to her attention. "I suppose I should be thanking you for that, otherwise I would have had a time of it myself, under the watchful eye of my brother." She scowled. "I assume you're the leader of the New Ozai Society that I've heard so much about?"

Ukano smiled. "Indeed I am. We were hoping you would be glad to see us though you are much changed. We nearly did not recognize you."

"I am not that much changed," Azula said. She curled her lips around her teeth in the old familiar sneer. "I'm glad you found me. There is nothing I value more than loyalty to the royal family."

As she spoke, others joined them. She recognized most but there were some she didn't. She also knew this could not be all of them—just perhaps a chosen few. They had brought small companies of men with them, and Azula knew that they had been expecting a fight.

They didn't trust her, and that was unacceptable.

"Are you better, Princess? Has your firebending been restored?"

Azula pulled the cloth from her forehead so they could clearly see the eye she had received in the spirit world. "What do you think?" They stepped back, afraid, and she laughed. "Did one of you happen to bring me something good to eat? I've been forced to forage for my meals like some common peasant."

They brought her fresh fruits, meat that was scrawny and lean, and she devoured them. "Are those lychee nuts?" she asked. "They're so fine. Are they from General Chang's orchard? You must be very good friends with him. Why, my father could never convince him to part with nuts like these unless he paid a personal visit. Until he became Firelord, that is."

They bowed. "We brought them from General Chang as a special gift at his request. Nothing but the best for you, Princess."

As they ate, she considered her position. Their respect was not what it once had been. They ate easily in front of her, though they waited for her to take the first bite. She had been gone too long, and she knew they didn't want her as a person, but as a symbol to prove Zuko's illegitimacy to the throne, despite being the first born son. Her presence would legitimize their acts, and they wanted her legendary firebending to burn fear into the hearts of those who opposed them, including her brother and his friends. They must have forgotten that he had defeated her in their Agni Kai. Or maybe they remembered and they were secretly glad she could not unleash her fury upon them. They had not asked her to prove she could still firebend. Perhaps they were too scared to do so. Perhaps they didn't want to know the truth.

She sucked the fruit from her fingers. "I heard that you bungled an assassination attempt on Zuko's life." She rose to her feet, tapping her chin. "Now how could that happen? Perhaps you're not as eager to depose him as you say." She rounded on Ukano. "My father is trusting you and your men to take back this Nation from traitors. You don't want to make a mess of things again, do you?" He blanched, and she smiled at that. "Each and every one of you will not fail us. If I sense any hesitation, if I sense any disloyalty—I will not hesitate to do what I must." She slipped comfortably into the speech. It was nearly the same one she had given to the Dai Li in Ba Sing Se. It had worked then, and it would work now. People were always the same.

Ukano swallowed nervously. "Do you have a plan, Princess?"

"Of course I have a plan." She snapped her fingers, and the men came closer to her. She could see their faces clearly now that they were not hiding in shadows. She never forgot a face, and she could not help but smile. They had doomed themselves seeking her out. "It is my understanding that Zuzu's anniversary as Firelord is approaching. Everyone who's anyone will be there. They will be pre-occupied with the festivities, with the self-satisfaction of their victory." She struck her open palm with her hand. "We make our move, then. We will hide in their company, we will strike when the sages bless Zuzu. It will be his most humiliating defeat."

They nodded, and Ukano spoke for them. "That is a good plan, Princess. A single blast of your blue fire will show everyone that you prepare the way for your father. But we do not have long to prepare."

"You have time enough. Forgive me, for I don't know much about planning a coup." Ukano blushed, but Azula ignored him. "Do you let convenience or circumstance rule your men, or do you do what needs to be done when it needs to be done like a real leader?"

An uncomfortable silence fell upon them.

"Yes, Princess," Ukano said softly. "It will be as you say."

"You better make sure it is," Azula said, smiling sweetly. "What of my father? I assume he has been sent to Ba Sing Se for judgment?" They nodded. "I suppose you want to use the Earth Kingdom delegates that will surely be in attendance as hostages for his safe return once we've removed my brother?" They nodded again, and she sighed languidly. "I suppose you could do that. Though I believe it would be better to burn them as a lesson and a warning." She inspected her hands carelessly. There was still dirt under her nails from where she had reburied her mother. She scowled at them. "What do you think?"

Mai's father bowed. "I am sure that we will defer to your good judgment."

"Excellent." Azula stretched luxuriously as she made her way to the largest tent that had been erected by less important men while they had been talking. "We'll leave for the Fire Nation in the morning. Be careful that you speak nothing of my presence here. Let them continue thinking that I'm safely out of the way in the South Pole. It would be such a shame to ruin the surprise of my return."

She swept passed Mai's father, who only opened his mouth a little in protest at her usurping his tent. She smiled when she was out of sight. It felt good to be back. It felt good to be doing something she was good at.

Plotting, scheming, lying? This was what she could do that Zuko could not. And, ultimately, it would be the only thing that would protect him from this New Ozai Society.

She had destroyed an entire, impenetrable city by eating it away from the inside. The New Ozai Society would fall just as easily.

As she paced the interior of the tent, she thought about sending a message to Zuko, to warn him. Or maybe she could reach out to Mai. She certainly would not stand for this from her own father, but if they were monitoring communications, the possibility that Azula would be discovered would be too great, and then she would lose her advantage.

No, she would have to do this alone, and hope Zuko and his friends understood. She could see them misunderstanding very easily.

After all, Azula always lied.

She was lying to Mai's father and the leaders of the New Ozai Society as she pretended to join them, but Zuko, Mai, Ty Lee, and even the Avatar would think she was lying if she told them she had always intended to betray Zuko's enemies to him.

It was a risk she could take, she decided. It was a risk she had to take.

She remembered the bright light and the green grass, her mother shielding her eyes from the sun. What lies have you told today, she had asked. Azula paused, momentarily, and looked around the tent.

Her mother was not haunting her today. Had not joined her since she had put the last rock back on the tombstone.

Her hands clenched into fists. She wondered if this was how her mother had felt when she had betrayed Ozai's father for her son. That had been a lie too, and Azula had helped her tell that lie.

Her mother would want her to do this. This was just another lie to save the same life. If her mother were alive, she would probably help Azula. She wouldn't stand in her way. She wouldn't lecture her about kindness and goodness. She would tell Azula to do whatever she could to save Zuko's life.

Maybe she was a little like her mother after all.

Azula took her mother's hairpiece from the satchel. It was a weight in her hand. She resumed her pacing. The New Ozai Society could not discover she had not restored her bending, a fact that still angered her exceedingly. She needed her bending now, for this moment. Hadn't she lost her bending when she betrayed her brother and the honor of the Agni Kai? Wasn't this what she needed to do to restore trust between them? Why wouldn't it come back when she needed it to succeed?

She held her hands in front of her, glaring at them, willing them to burst into blue flame as her fingers flexed into claws around the hairpiece.

She gasped, dropping it. If she had succeeded, the flame would have been hot enough to melt the metal, coating her hands in weeping gold, and then she wouldn't even have that one thing from her mother anymore.

Breathing shakily, she bent down and picked it up from the lush carpet that Ukano had brought to make his night more comfortable. She put it safely back into her satchel so that she was not distracted by it, by her mother. She could not fail. Not this time.

Azula was still awake when she heard the camp stirring. She strode from Mai's father's tents, clapping her hands loudly as she called for them to hurry up so they could return to the capital in the fine ships that Ukano had brought with him. She saw the way they looked at her, some with resentment, some without outright hatred.

Dissidence in the ranks regarding their decision to include the crazy daughter of Lord Ozai would only help Zuko. So she raised her voice louder, made more threats, and in double time they were on the way, and she smiled as she shielded her eyes from the rising sun.

She was finally going home.


	45. Discovered

Mai lounged in the palace against a pillar outside the throne room. She was guarding the door while Zuko discussed hideously boring matters of state with his ministers. She wished that Ty Lee were with her. She was always finding something to divert her, but she was not due to arrive until tomorrow—hopefully before Mai expired of boredom.

Mai spun her knives. They were a new set to replace the ones she had lost, and she was still familiarizing herself with them. Her thoughts wandered towards home as she flipped her knife. Her father had (supposedly) departed to Ember Island for rest and relaxation, but Mai had a letter from her mother in her pocket that said he had not yet joined her there. Mai had not yet divulged her suspicions of her father to her mother because what was there to say, what could she do, assuming she wasn't in on it too?

Mai sighed.

She was going to bring Tom-Tom to the palace for good now that her father couldn't be there to stop her. She had taken to staying with Zuko in the palace instead of returning home, but her father had never let Tom-Tom come with her, even though it felt like he was always gone these days.

Not anymore, Mai thought. She had already prepared Tom-Tom's room, and if her father didn't like it—she shrugged.

When Zuko finally emerged from the council chamber an hour later, Mai pushed herself from the pillar. "Finally," she whispered as she stood on tiptoes to kiss Zuko on the cheek. "I was almost starting to wish that someone would try something."

Zuko laughed at her. "When I'm on my deathbed from an expertly blown poison dart, you'll regret saying that."

"It would never happen. They'd have to get through me first," Mai said.

Zuko turned suddenly serious, his eyes soft. He was about to say something mushy and embarrassing, and she looked away from him so she wouldn't feel so self conscious. "Thank you, Mai," he said.

"For standing around and doing nothing?"

He kissed her cheek this time. "No, for being so invested in keeping me around."

"Who else is going to hate the world with me?" Mai said as she held his hand. She didn't say that she had already lost three years with him, that she would not allow herself to lose anymore. "I'll be back with Tom-Tom," she said. "Don't wait up for me."

"I'll wait up," Zuko said. "But don't be surprised if your tea's gone cold."

"You're a firebender. You can warm it back up in no time." Mai smiled at him and then walked swiftly down the halls. The meeting had taken longer than it should have, and she was anxious to get Tom-Tom and return to the palace.

It did not take her long to reach her own home, but she stopped short when she saw that someone had lit the lamps in the entryway. The nurses that Father had hired to take care of Tom-Tom always forgot to light them, and it always made him irritated.

He was home already.

Mai reached for her knife, and softly opened the door. She listened carefully, but her father must have sent the nurses away. She crept slowly through the hallways and the empty rooms. She wondered if she were overreacting, if she was letting her suspicion rule her.

But her father should not be home.

She did not hear her father until she approached the cellar, where he kept his fine wines. She hung back, in the shadows, and listened. It did not seem he was alone, but she could not tell how many were with him.

A voice she did not know accused her father of making a fine mess of things, another voice told him that he had made a sentimental decision because of Mai, and if Mai were a person inclined to laugh, she would have struggled to keep silent. As it was, she merely rolled her eyes.

Her father told them all to be quiet, and Mai recognized the tone in the shiver that went down her spine, in the way she instinctively tried to make herself smaller as she pressed herself against the wall. She became distracted from the conversation when she heard another pair of footsteps coming from the kitchen.

There was only one way into the cellar, and so Mai held very still, hoping that whoever it was expected the house to be empty and would not be particularly perspective to her presence. Her clothes were dark, and she hid in shadow.

Mai turned her face away so that it was hidden by her black hair.

Whoever it was breezed by without even a second look.

"Are you all discussing little old me?" a new voice asked. "Hasn't anyone told you it's rude to discuss people behind their backs?"

Mai put her hand to her mouth as she recognized Azula's voice. Wasn't she supposed to be in the South Pole, recovering? The whole purpose of leaving her there was to make sure this didn't happen.

She pressed her head against the wall and sighed. Even though they had all decided to leave her behind, she had hoped, she had been hoping, that Azula would not want to betray Zuko.

It had almost seemed possible that Azula could change, had changed.

It had been stupid to hope, and Mai bit her lip as she forced herself to listen and to pay attention. Maybe she would hear something that would help Zuko—and she closed her eyes at the thought of having to tell him about this.

Her father was trying to assuage Azula. "Forgive us, Princess. We are only unsure if your strategy of attacking during the ceremony will be feasible. Zuko may be careless with his own person, but his security is not something to take lightly. Perhaps-we should consider a more rational plan of attack."

Azula laughed the high pitched, skin-crawling laughter that had become so familiar to Mai.

"Do you think I'm crazy?" Azula said. "Is that why you challenge at every turn? We're doing this my way—it was Zuko who took the throne from me, and I'm the one who's going to take it back." There was an uncomfortable pause. "He'll regret what he did to me on that day."

"No, no, Princess," Mai's father said, and she could easily see him groveling on his knees as he had done once Azula had waltzed into Omashu and told him what a terrible job he was doing. Mai had almost smiled. Azula had always made him feel small.

Some things never changed.

The same dissenter who had wondered at the wisdom of including Azula in their schemes, spoke up. "This isn't about a feud between siblings. This is about putting the rightful ruler on the throne."

"My father made me Firelord before he departed on his conquest for the Earth Kingdom. And yet none of you are clamoring for me to rule you. What does that mean, I wonder? Perhaps you don't really respect my father or his choices at all. I'm sure he would have a lot of things to say about that. I know I certainly do."

Mai barely breathed in the silence that followed

"Perhaps, Princess," her father said, "it would be best to keep Zuko alive? As leverage to force Ba Sing Se to let your father go?"

Mai shook her head. Azula would have to get to Zuko through her—and she had already failed once. Ty Lee would be beside her—and this time, they wouldn't be sent away, out of sight of everyone.

"I am going to tell you a story," Azula said, sweetly. "Once, my mother, Ursa, committed an act of treachery. My poor father took mercy on her, and banished her instead of outright killing her. Then, his little spies brought word to him: Ursa was on the move. She was attempting to meet up with Zuko and Uncle Iroh. He knew what he must do, and so he sent an assassin after her, lest she form an alliance with his enemies and reveal secrets that were not hers to tell. But he didn't finish the job—he didn't kill Zuko for his treachery, for his shame, too, and look at what has happened. My father is a wise man, but he has made his mistakes—mistakes that I do not intend to repeat."

Mai shook her head. She should leave, she should warn Zuko, but she knew she had to stay in only to hear more. And to confront her father. He was another bully, just like Azula. If she had stood up to her, she could certainly stand up to him.

"So we will attack during the celebrations, and will make sure that there is no chance that Zuzu can come back to cause us any trouble after we are done. We'll do it in full sight of everyone. And if they struggle, they can join my brother's fate with their treachery. Don't you agree?"

There was a long pause. "Yes, Princess."

"That's what I thought," Azula said. "Now if you don't mind, I need to make arrangements to make sure that our plans will succeed. After all, guards aren't going to bribe themselves. Though, if they're wise, I won't need to bribe them at all. After all, you can't place a price on loyalty."

Her father stopped Azula for a moment, to assure him that he and the New Ozai Society were with her, no matter what, and Mai didn't have the patience for his flattery. So she crept away and hid in the room where they received guests, and served them their fine food like the nobility they were supposed to be. Tom-Tom was sleeping nearby. A porcelain bowl, white with blue paintings on it, sat in the center of a smooth glass table. It was full of fireflakes, and Mai reached for it as she waited for the Society to leave. The spicy heat cleared her mind as she tried to decide what to do. Maybe she should have tried to see their faces. Maybe she should have stopped them, right then, but she didn't know how.

And she did not know what to do with her father.

The Society had sounded fractured, as if their leadership were weak, and they were only bound together by their shared loathing of Zuko.

Her father was their leader, and maybe if he was gone, then the whole Society would collapse. They would be powerless, leaderless, and they would disperse. In which case, it would be better to corner him alone, without his friends to protect him.

Azula might try to take his place as leader, but no one wanted her there. Even Mai had heard their resentment and their fear when they spoke of her. If she tried to become the new leader, they would have no loyalty to her. Some of them might even realize Zuko wasn't so bad, and would ask him to take care of her, once they realized how terrible she really was.

And then Azula would be gone too, and the New Ozai Society would be finished. There would be no royal member of the family to legitimize their cause. Ozai would be too far away in the Earth Kingdom to save.

Mai reached for where Tom-Tom had woken with a sleepy yawn, and lightly held his hand. But she would need to do this after she took Tom-Tom away. Even though he was young, maybe too young to remember, she didn't want it to happen in front of him. She didn't want her father to maybe use him as leverage against the guards she would send to arrest him.

She straightened and went tense when she heard the New Ozai Society finally leave. They crept out swiftly, looking over their shoulders before they dispersed in the streets.

Maybe they should have thought twice before meeting so close to the palace. Maybe it was smart, because no one had thought to look for them. They were hiding right in plain sight. Mai wondered if that had been Azula's idea too. It seemed like something she would do. It's what she had done in Ba Sing Se, after all.

A few minutes later, her father closed the door to his home. He lit the lamp mounted on the wall and, when he turned, he saw Mai in the flickering light. He gasped.

Mai held the bowl out to him. "Fireflakes, Dad?"

"What are you doing here?" he asked, his voice nervous and trembling.

He looked afraid when he saw her. Perhaps she had already risked discovery by deciding to wait until he was alone. She should have left and told the guards to round them all up. But she had not known how many there were, and if Azula had regained her bending in the meantime-she saw how her father was waiting for her to respond, and shook the self doubt away. "I came to pick up Tom-Tom. You had visitors, and you know how boring I find them so I decided to wait in the dark." She held her hands in front of her face. "You know how the light hurts my eyes."

He stood at her, blinking as if he did not comprehend what she said. "You're taking Tom-Tom?"

"Of course I'm taking him," Mai said. After her time with Azula, it was easy to lie. Her father and his despicable actions made it even easier. "I just wanted to bring him with me to the palace this evening. I'll bring him back tomorrow."

Her father sweated, and he looked at her nervously. She wanted to leave now that she knew he was alone, but he couldn't be allowed to suspect her. She picked up Tom-Tom and then stood beside her father. "Goodbye, Dad," she said.

"Goodbye, Mai," he said. She thought his voice sounded strange, but she wasn't sure. They had never been friends, they had never had a relationship, and so she did not know him. Who was she to say his voice sounded strange?

Still, she felt his eyes on her as she went to the palace. She tried not to hurry her pace. She let Tom-Tom walk when he begged to be put down, and she held his hand, slowing down to match him. She even let him toddle off to look at a pretty butterfly.

She wondered if the act was good enough.

When she finally arrived at the gates of the palace, she ordered the guards to bring her father in for questioning.

Then she brought Tom-Tom to her room. He was asleep again, and she laid him down gently in the bed she had prepared. After she made sure he did not wake, she asked Li and Lo to look after him while she discussed an urgent matter with Zuko.

The chief guard was in attendance, and Zuko gestured for Mai to come. "Did you find him?" she asked as she approached.

"He got away," the guard said.

Mai frowned. "I hadn't realized he was so agile in his old age. He must have suspected me and left immediately."

The guard nodded curtly and said they would continue the search. He bowed to Zuko before hurrying off with the rest of his men.

"What is going on, Mai?"

She told Zuko what she had overheard, but she didn't tell him about Azula-not yet. She didn't know how. When she saw him lean back in his chair, pinching the bridge of his nose, she said, "I told you."

"You did," Zuko said. But there was no smile in his word, not light in his eyes. He stared at his desk, and sighed.

He already looked defeated. Mai didn't want to tell him about Azula, but she couldn't wait. He had to know. He had to be prepared. She forced herself to take a deep breath. "Zuko," she said.

He raised his head. "I know that tone. That there's more and worse."

"Azula was there as well."

Zuko's mouth dropped open. "What?"

"My father found her and she has joined his cause," Mai said, struggling to keep her voice bored, like of course this would happen, and anybody who thought otherwise was a fool. "She was the one who said they should assassinate you during the celebrations. I doubt they will strike then now since they will suspect I overheard them. I've ruined everything. I'm sorry." She folded her arms tightly across her chest.

As she spoke, Zuko's face morphed through every emotion that Mai could imagine feeling about receiving such news. Disappointment, first, and finally devastation as the news about Azula finally sank in.

Azula had betrayed him. Of course she would.

His mouth opened as his hand went over the scar Azula had left nearly a year ago.

The nothing stretched on.

Mai stood still, though her feet ached and she longed to sit down.

"Thank you for telling me, Mai," Zuko finally said, his voice cracking. "There's no chance that you might have mistaken her? Or misunderstood her?"

Mai forced herself to look at Zuko without flinching. "None." She told him the story Azula had told about his mother. His face paled. His eyes watered. "I'm sorry," Mai said again.

He nodded, as if accepting this fact though she could see in his eyes that he didn't want to. "Maybe she was lying," he said. "Azula always lies."

Mai shook her head.

She would always be ready to move on from Azula, and he never would.

It was one of the reasons she loved him, she realized. He had seen something in her beyond the bored, apathetic teenager, after all. Had believed in it so hard he'd help coax it out of her. Of course he would see something more in Azula too—something Mai could not see.

She put her hand on his shoulder, let her fingers glide across the smooth silk of his back, until her hand fell into empty space as she left him behind. He needed to be alone, right now. He didn't need to tell her because she knew him.

Instead, she went to her own chambers, where Li and Lo were watching Tom-Tom. She thanked them and sent them on their way, and sat beside him. He was sleeping, breathing noisily from his mouth.

She watched him. Hoped he wouldn't wake up.

A few hours later, she heard a soft knock. She hoped it was Zuko when she called, "Come in."

But it was Ty Lee, her braid perfect as always, her eyes incredibly intense and earnest as always. She still smelled like sea salt, like she had barely landed and hadn't even bothered to freshen up before finding her. Mai braced herself. "I heard what happened!" Ty Lee's voice was breathless as if she had run through every hall and corridor.

She probably had.

"Lots of things happen every day," Mai said.

"About your father! That must have been—" Ty Lee paused, thinking for the right word. "Hard. Or maybe it was easy? I know you were never on good terms."

"It was easy," Mai said. Easier than hearing Azula's voice conspiring with her father. Her face twisted.

Ty Lee watched her keenly. "Your face tells a different story." She knelt beside her, putting her hands in Mai's. "What's wrong?"

Mai looked at her for a long time. She would need to tell Ty Lee, but she didn't want to. Ty Lee would be so unhappy. She would cry. She would get angry. She would insist that Mai didn't know what she was talking about.

But Ty Lee deserved to know that her faith in Azula had been misplaced.

"What is it?" Ty Lee said, more insistently.

"I overheard Azula speaking with my father. They were conspiring against Zuko."

Ty Lee's mouth dropped. "What?" she said, her voice so high pitched it squeaked. "What did you say?"

Mai repeated herself, voice level to counterbalance the way Ty Lee's face was stretching itself into open shock and disbelief and, still lurking under the surface, anger. "I'm sorry," Mai thought to add after a few moments of silence.

"I don't believe you," Ty Lee insisted. She was on the floor, sitting on her knees, and she leaned forward, her hands gripping the lush carpets. "You're wrong. You misunderstood. There's something that you missed!"

"I heard everything clearly," Mai said, exhausted.

Ty Lee looked around her, as if she were looking for the perfect way to explain everything that Mai had heard. "She's only pretending. She's doing what she did in Ba Sing Se! She's being—" Ty Lee snapped her fingers, looking for the word. "It starts with a d because it's about making a dupe of the person you're fooling!"

"Duplicitous?" Mai asked drily.

Ty Lee lunged forward, seizing Mai's hands. "Yes!"

"You're right," Mai said. "But it's us she's deceiving."

"We weren't even around to be deceived!"

Mai slipped her hands away and folded her arms tight across her chest. "That's the whole point. She pretended to change when we were there, and the minute we had to leave she's joining the New Ozai Society the first chance she gets." Mai turned away. "We should have known. I should have seen it coming." But instead, she had been surprised.

Who had miscalculated now?

"Not the first chance," Ty Lee said.

Her desperation made Mai nauseous.

"What was she doing all this time?"

"Hard to say since I don't know when she woke up."

"Exactly! She could have been doing anything. She could have been on her way to us except that the New Ozai Society found her first. She saw an opportunity to trick them and so she did!"

Mai glared. "Don't try to make excuses for her! I know what I heard."

Ty Lee stood up, towering over Mai as she planted her fists against against her hips. "You're just looking for a reason to keep hating her!"

Mai was tempted to climb to her feet too, but then she sighed. It wasn't worth the effort. It wasn't worth the fight. "Ty Lee."

"What?" she demanded.

"When have I ever needed an excuse to hate anyone?" Mai looked at her then, unsmiling and serious as she always was. There were days, sometimes, where it felt like she even hated someone as good and kind as Ty Lee. Why would she then need a reason to hate Azula, reformed or not? Apologetic and humbled or not? On their side or not?

Ty Lee gaped like a fish because she knew it was true.

Tom-Tom woke and began to cry, so Mai turned towards him, and held him in her arms, mimicking the way she had seen her mother bounce him. She hoped she would return from Ember Island soon.

"I still don't believe you," Ty Lee said, her voice rapid. "I think that you're wrong. I think you don't know something important."

Mai shrugged as she sighed. "You're more than welcome to believe that."

They stood in tense silence. Ty Lee angrily wiped a tear away with her wrist, as if she were embarrassed that she be caught weeping. Mai turned away so that she wouldn't have to see.

And then another knock came at the door, and Mai again called for them to enter, even as she wondered how many visitors she would have today, even as she realized she should have asked who it was in case it were Azula waiting to kill them all.

But it wasn't Azula. It was Zuko, and he looked stunned, as if he were in a daze. He sat down heavily on Mai's bed, looking at his hands.

Mai watched him, worried, as she exchanged a glance with Ty Lee. Had it taken him this long for the news of Azula's betrayal to sink in?

"What's wrong, Zuko?" she finally asked when Zuko remained silent.

He raised his head, his hair flopping into his eyes. He looked at her then, his eyes wide, his lips slightly parted, and she loved him, she loved him, she loved him.

She gave Tom-Tom to Ty Lee and went to sit beside him, her hands on his shoulder.

He looked at her, and he was almost smiling. "I just had the most interesting conversation with Azula," he said.

Ty Lee shrieked and Tom-Tom started to cry. "I told you, Mai, I told you!"

But Mai was skeptical. "What excuses did she make this time?"

And he told them exactly what she had said.


	46. Together Again

It was easy for Azula to slip into the palace unnoticed. The guards were distracted with amusing themselves chasing after Mai's father, and with a headband tied tightly around her forehead, and what remained of her hair left hanging free, she would not look like the old Princess Azula in case Mai decided to sic the guards on her too.

As she tumbled over the wall, twisting to hide behind the trunk of the pink-flowering mimosa trees, she closed her eyes as she listened for the pacing of the guard. When he was out of sight, Azula dashed towards the interior of the palace, hiding in the shadows.

She had seen Mai, of course, crouching, eavesdropping. Azula should have touched her shoulder, put a hand to her mouth, and told her the truth.

If it had been Ty Lee instead of Mai, she probably would have. But Mai wouldn't believe her in any case. Still, she had been glad to see Mai. She would tell Zuko everything.

Which Azula had been intending to do all along, of course, she thought as she walked down the palace halls, carrying steaming hot towels for the families who had gathered for the celebration. In her simple clothes, it would be easy to pass her off as one of the staff at first glance though if any stayed to linger, they might notice they were a little more threadbare than they should be, a little more travel stained.

Guards were posted at the throne room and his chambers as well, so Azula was unable to sneak in through the door as she had done when they were young.

So she offered them hot towels, which they declined, and after that, Azula slipped out to the gardens again. She made her way through them until she was directly beneath Zuko's window.

Night was beginning to fall as she stared up and up, before she finally shrugged her shoulders and found the shallow indentations the stones made when they had been layered one against the other.

She climbed swiftly and silently until she clung to the sill. With a knife she had taken from Mai's father, she undid the lock, and dropped silently to the floor, seating herself in one of the chairs as darkness filled the room. The bed was in the far distant corner, and above it hung a portrait of Mai and Zuko, all in black. The artist had captured them well, Azula thought. There was a desk beside the bed, with parchment stretched across it. A neat pile of scrolls, bearing an official seal, was also on the desk.

She wondered if Zuko was ever free of his affairs of state.

It was just like the last time when she had been forced to wait for him to return. But this time there were no pretty shells to occupy her fingers, and her hair was short, and so she waited as her foot jiggled up and down.

She was already up and pacing when she heard Zuko greet his guards, and she sat back down again quickly, lounging in her seat with one leg swung over her other knee as she pretended to examine her fingernails.

The door opened, and then shut. Zuko lit a candle with a touch of his fingers, and he stretched.

He was tired, she could tell. His arm was injured too, as it moved more stiffly and did not raise as high as the other. She wondered if this was where the assassination attempt had landed it pathetic blow.

He did not notice her as he sighed, bracing himself against the desk as his eyes closed. He shook his head, as if he were ashamed or angry with himself.

Feeling suddenly embarrassed, Azula said, "Hello, brother."

He swung towards her voice, fire flaming from his fists, and Azula raised her own hands in something she supposed looked like surrender. "It's only me," she added, as if that would matter or change anything.

"Azula!" he said, his voice tight and strained. The flame fluttered in his hands and she rolled her eyes. How could he be so emotional—if Mai had told him everything, he should be calling for the guard at the very least, sending a fireball her way at the very most. "What happened to your hair?"

Azula rose to her feet, hands still raised. "I cut it off, obviously. But do we really want to discuss my appearance after everything that Mai has told you?" She raised her eyebrow at him, and then shook her head as she lowered her hands. "Honestly, Zuko, your priorities could use a little work."

His face paled, his lips tightening in anger. "Mai told me everything."

"Everything she heard, I'm sure," Azula said as she turned towards the window. "I'm surprised you haven't called for your guards. I had to climb up the wall to even get in here." She looked at her hands, the nailbeds beginning to bruise.

"I could still call them," Zuko said.

She turned to face him again. "Then why don't you?"

He looked at her, his eyes soft. "Because I want to believe you're different. You saved my life once before. But you've also tried to kill me before, and I don't know what to believe anymore. I don't know what lies you've told, what lies you're going to tell because you always lie."

Azula rolled her eyes. Sometimes, he could be so frank about his feelings. It made her uncomfortable. So instead, she chose to laugh. "Honestly, Zuko, if I had come here to kill you, I've done a terrible job of it." She started to pace in a tight circle, tapping her chin. "Which means I must have some other motive to be here, don't I? Perhaps it's because I am actually on your side, and I can't destroy Mai's father and the entire New Ozai Society without you. It's almost as if we're back in Ba Sing Se again, except the stakes are unbelievably higher with so many lives on the line." Her hands clenched into fists as she saw her brother looking at her like he didn't believe her. "Well, I could destroy Mai's father easily enough, but it wouldn't do me a lot of good because a new leader will just take his place—maybe someone who is even effective which would be bad news for you. Mai should have understood that before she sent the guards after her father," she added almost reproachfully. "If I had known she was going to do that then I would have said something to her." Azula paused, smiling too widely, too stiffly. "I suppose she would say I miscalculated."

"You're pretending to be on their side," Zuko said.

"Of course, I am." Azula yawned languidly. "You know how I feel about traitors. Before I knew that Mai could somehow drag herself away from you my full intention was to go and tell you how to lay the perfect little trap for them and then they would be done for and we could all get on with our lives. But of course, Mai had other ideas. Honestly, sending the guards after her father instead of waiting. You'd think she hadn't learned anything after all our time together."

"She thought she was doing the right thing. He was alone, vulnerable. She just hadn't realized he would take her leaving so seriously," Zuko said. "What's going to happen now?"

Azula shrugged. "How would I know? It's not as if I'm their leader, though I've made considerable effort to take authority away from Mai's father. But they don't trust me." She turned away, angry. She remembered when she had made her enemies trust her, like the Dai Li who were sworn to protect Ba Sing Se from the Fire Nation, from her. She had lost her touch, just like she had lost her bending. Nothing had changed—except something must have, because she was standing here in this room, trying to save her brother.

"Why?" Zuko asked. "Isn't that why they approached you?"

Azula laughed. "Zuzu. Please. They approached me because they wanted to use me as their little prop to validate their position. They're not traitors if they have the royal family on their side, especially since you've always been the least regarded of us all, since you were the one who betrayed us first when you left us behind joined the Avatar. Sorry if that hurts." Her laughter died, and she frowned as she stared at the candle flame that Zuko had lit. "It doesn't help that I haven't been the little pyro they were hoping to unleash."

"What do you mean?"

Azula's mouth twitched against her teeth as she tried to smile. "I thought it would be obvious, brother, but I haven't restored my bending. They want cold blue fire and I haven't given it to them. They're starting to suspect that I'm just as helpless as I was before, but I was hoping they'd all be rotting in a jail cell by the time they did." She scowled.

"Oh," Zuko said.

The way the light hit his face, it was almost as if he was disappointed or something. "As if I care, of course," Azula said. "Who needs firebending these days? I do just fine without it, as I always do. Firebending didn't define me, Zuko."

"Azula—"

She held out her hand. "Don't even think about saying you're sorry for me or anything so terribly pitiful as that because we both know that's a lie. You're relieved that I'm still broken. But that's fine because we have far more important things to discuss."

"Azula," Zuko said, "Mai told me something else about what you said. Something about—Mom. Did that really happen—or is it just a story you told?"

Of course he would get around to that eventually. "Yes, it's probably perfectly true. And I'll even tell you where I found her after we've taken care of this problem. There were letters and everything." Her mouth grew dry and she licked her lips. She had them with her, of course, but Zuko could not be distracted. Not now, not when he needed to take care of the Society. He should have done it a long time ago.

He looked at her as if she had struck him. "You don't even sound sad. How can you talk about her like that?"

"It's not as if we were particularly close. Besides we always knew she was probably dead. Now we know for sure." How could she tell him she had seen her mother constantly, how could she tell him that she had had to bury her, again? How could she tell him any of these things? How could he know that she had cried?

"How do you know it was our father?" Zuko said, his eyes downcast as he sat down on the bed.

Azula made an impatient noise. "We can't talk about this now. We need to talk about a plan to deal with these traitors before they cause real damage. They have General Chang on their side you know. He's giving them his best lychee nuts."

Zuko shook his head. "I'm tired of thinking about them, and I don't care about General Chang. I've been in the dark about Mom for years, and you know the answers, and you won't tell me anything. It's not fair, Azula!"

"Because if I do, that's all you'll think about and you'll be an easy target! You need to focus!"

"That's not true!" Zuko insisted.

Azula glared at him before finally walking towards him, until she stood so close, her shadow slanted across his face, across his hands. "I don't know for sure. If he were still around, I'm sure we could just ask him but he's in the Earth Kingdom by now. Maybe you can ask him after all this is over. I'm sure he'll tell you I'm right. He and I? We think the same." She tapped her head. "When I saw how she had died, I knew." She put her hand over her heart. "I knew, Zuko, because I saw and I realized that if I had been in his position, I would have done it too, and then I felt like an idiot for not realizing it sooner."

"Don't say that," Zuko said.

Azula shrugged. "It's the truth. Can we talk about something more important, now? Perhaps the fact that you're still a target for assassination and that anything could happen because everything is ruined? Especially since it's not like I can stay here all night. It's not as if they won't suspect me if I'm not back soon or anything like that." She looked over her shoulder at the open window. She felt the urgency of her position, the need to leave right now or at least as soon as possible—but she didn't want to leave. She wanted to stay, even though speaking to Zuko was turning into an exercise of frustration. Still, she forced herself to speak. "I've already been gone too long. It doesn't take this long to bribe even the most loyal guards, which is what I told him I was doing."

Zuko swore at her, but she didn't let that stop her.

"Don't worry," Azula said. "It's not like I actually had money to bribe them—but he doesn't need to know that. I'm sure he thinks we have wealth just sitting around, ripe for the taking. But when I return, I am going to push extremely hard for them to keep trying for the celebration, so you had better make sure your guards and the Kyoshi Warriors are not going to be incompetent. I know the palace best, so I will be the one making the exit and the entry plans for the Ozai Society."

She went to his writing desk, and dipped his brush in the ink, sketching a rough design of the palace and the surrounding grounds. He went to her, and stood close beside her as he watched her work. "I'm going to bring them in through what used to be the servant quarters. This will allow them to come here unseen." She gestured towards the inner rooms of the Palace. "The initial plan was to attack during the middle of the celebration, but I'm going to convince them to make their move before it even officially starts. That way they arrive triumphant before everyone, and I'll tell them I'll take the Firelord title until we can negotiate for my father's release. They'll be anxious to agree—these are men who have not fought wars before, and they'll prefer to crown a true ruler right there instead of causing a panic and riot. Nobody wants to ruin a good party." She looked up at Zuko then, as if she expected him to agree with her. But that was stupid—she could see it now, how he held himself a little distantly from her, that a coldness had seeped into his gaze. She forced herself to laugh. "I have to convince them, Zuko. It's not like any of this is going to happen, because your friends are going to prevent it. Why else do you think I'm telling you all this?"

Zuko nodded then. "It's a very convincing plan." His voice was quiet, soft. "It would have worked."

"It will work best for both of us," Azula said. "It would be better to do away with these traitors without a lot of noise and fuss. Now, no one will need to know that anything has happened until you decide to tell them. We have control of the story if no one knows what's happening, if it's all happening out of sight. And we won't have to worry about losing any of them in a mob."

"Also, it would keep the people safer if they weren't terrified out of their minds by an assassination attempt," Zuko said mildly.

Azula rolled her eyes. "That too." She pointed to a part of the palace that was very close to them. "This hallway makes a perfect bottleneck. I'll make sure the Society is stationed here and here. It's the perfect place for a trap—for you and for us. It'll look like you're helpless, but you won't be. You'll be ready, and then there'll be no where to go but right into the Kyoshi Warriors stationed at the checkpoints. They'll be ours!" She clenched her free hand into a fist, as she slammed it against the table.

"I don't see how a small team sent to assassinate me before I have a chance to properly wake up will compromise all of them," Zuko said. "Where will the rest of their little gang be?"

Azula turned to her map again, tapping her own empty quarters. "I'll tell the other high ranking officials to wait for me and Mai's father here. Send guards and you'll find them all. Some of these people will have small companies of men. Nothing like an army of course but enough, perhaps, to take frightened, surprised people. I'll order them to be stationed some miles from the palace so they can be sent to occupy the palace just in case something goes wrong." By the time they realized the trap was for them and not for Zuko, it would be too late.

Zuko almost smiled. "I know the perfect spot. Just send them, and I'll make sure the rest are taken care of."

She turned away from the writing desk and sat on Zuko's bed. "It would be easier if we could actually communicate with each other. This plan will only work if they'll listen to me, and there's no guarantee that they will. They're watching your hawk communications, you know. At least, I hope you know that. I sent you a letter and everything but they got to it before you did."

"You sent me a letter?" Zuko asked.

"Yes, telling you that I was leaving the South Pole and that if you wanted to stop me you would need to send Aang with his flying bison so I wouldn't have to walk the whole way back. I told you the route I was going to take, and you never came." Her voice faltered, and she stopped suddenly as she realized she almost sounded sad. "Not that I cared, of course, especially after I found out why."

"I'm sorry," Zuko said. "I would have come. I know how hard it is to walk the whole way."

Part of that was her fault too, so she turned her eyes away, staring at the map she had made. Trying to think of every argument she could use to convince the Society to do what she wanted. She needed to leave, she needed to go, she had stayed here too long—but she only stared at the soft wavering light from the candle Zuko had lit.

"It's a good plan," he said.

She scoffed. "Well, I'm going to be in the middle of it so if you could kindly inform Mai not to stick me with one of her knives I'd be grateful."

Zuko's mouth twitched as if he wanted to laugh.

"It's not funny, Zuzu."

"It is a little funny," he said, finally giving her one of his spare grins.

She just shook her head and stood to her feet. She couldn't delay any longer. As she went towards the window, she said, "It's going to take one other thing for this to work, Zuko. I'm going to ask you to do something you haven't done in your whole life—which is to trust me."

Zuko nodded. "I've trusted you before—and I think I can trust you again."

Azula turned around to look at him. The light was so poor that Azula couldn't tell if he was being serious or not. "Well, that's a relief. But I really must be going. I'm already going to have to come up with a good story as to where I've been for all this time. Not that I'll have any trouble—I can be very convincing when I want to be. See you at the celebration."

She turned to go, but his hand caught her wrist. "Be careful, Azula. I just got you back, and I don't want anything to happen to you."

She looked down at his grip. "You needn't concern yourself, Zuko. I promise you'll find out what happened to Mom. I'll even be around to tell you where to find her when this is all over, I promise. If my word means anything to you these days."

"What are you doing?" Zuko, still holding her hand. He sounded upset, and it made her skin go cold. "Why are you always trying to push me away?"

"Do you really think that a year away could change anything between us? I am who I am, and I don't know what you want me to say." She spoke quickly, recognizing the pressure building in her throat and sinuses. If she stayed, she would tell him everything, and she could not do that. Not when it was still so fresh, so raw, when she understood so little of it herself.

"I remember when we used to be close," Zuko said, quietly. "I remember even though there was a time I tried to forget because it hurt so much to see what we had become." He raised his eyes to her, his grip still loose and she wondered why she did not pull her hand away. "Why do you think I didn't call the guards when I saw you sitting alone in the dark?"

"Because you have a terrible sense of self preservation," Azula said, and then she flinched when she remembered how he had rushed headlong into the lightning bolt meant for Katara, the flash of cold fire she had shot from her hands when she had cheated so shamefully. She pulled her hand from his quickly. "It's why you need so many people to look out for you, dum-dum." She eyed him, causally, and saw that his good eye was crying. She turned away at the sight of it. "I need to go."

Zuko did not reply for a few moments. He wiped his eye with his wrist, and cleared his throat. "And how are you going to get down? I hardly think waltzing through the front doors of the palace will do you any favors with Mai's father in case he's got a spy."

Azula wanted to ask him why he didn't know whether he had a spy or not but decided not to. It wouldn't matter for much longer anyway. "You don't happen to have some rope?" she asked instead, not fancying attempting to climb down the tower in the dead of night.

Zuko shook his head, but then he went to his bed, stripping the fine sheets. "I guess we'll make do. Sokka probably has some, but he's all the way on the other side of the palace. And I really don't think he'd want to let you use his rope."

They knotted the sheets in silence until Zuko finally asked, "Why are you wearing a headband?"

Azula rolled her eyes and scowled. "The spirit world left its mark on me. I think the spirits were trying to be funny, but it's really just stupid and silly." She shoved the strip of cloth over the crown of her head, and let Zuko take a look.

"It's just like a combustion benders eye," he said.

Azula settled the cloth over it and shrugged. "Except it doesn't do anything. It would be fine if it actually did something but now it just makes me look like a freak."

"Maybe you just don't know what it does, yet," Zuko said. "Maybe you just need to give it time."

"I've given it plenty of time," Azula said, sourly, as she tightened the last knot. Carrying the twisted sheets in her arms, she threw them out the window and watched them coil as they fell, until gravity made it hang straight from her hand. She gave the end of the rope of sheets to Zuko, who twisted it around his hand, and braced his foot against the sill. Azula climbed over the ledge, hand gripping the cloth. "Don't drop me." Without waiting for him to reply, she began to climb quickly down.

There was not enough sheet to reach the ground, so she dropped the rest of the way, folding her body tightly in on itself. She stood to her feet, brushing dirt and bits of grass from her knees, and looked up towards the glowing patch of light that came from Zuko's room. She could see the silhouette of his head as he looked down at her.

And then she left, scampering through the gardens and over the high walls, and running through the street towards where Mai's father would be waiting with his friends and leaders and the rest of the New Ozai Society.

When she was a block away, she slowed to a walk so that she could catch her breath, and wouldn't appear to be someone who had been in a rush, someone who had been nervous about being gone so long. She undid the headband around her head, ran her fingers through her hair, and then secured the cloth more securely over her eye.

She went into the house. It was small, a property owned by one of Mai's father's friends. Normally it would be rented to someone but it had been empty, and it was a good place to hide since Mai had ruined using her own house as their headquarters.

A shame, because Mai's house was far more comfortable than this.

The leaders of the New Ozai Society were crowded around a lamp as they spoke in hushed tones. Azula lingered just out of sight, eavesdropping. They were not happy with Mai's father. They thought the plan was too risky and that they should wait. They thought he should have known that Mai would betray them—she was dating the Firelord they were attempting to depose after all.

Azula rolled her eyes. They were plagued with fear. They wanted to be brave and strong, but they didn't know how to do it. They were fractured without true purpose. They didn't really want Ozai back, even if they thought they did. They just didn't want Zuko on the throne.

Which, honestly, was stupid.

Bored of hearing more, she pushed her way through the entry and said, "Are any of us really surprised? Mai has always loved Zuko more than anything in the world. More than her fear of me, more than her respect for you." She glared at Mai's father. "I should have expected that you would allow her to foil our plans."

"We'll make a new plan," he said, his hands gripping the table, as if he wished he could do something mean, something violent.

"Should we lock you up in jail while we wait for you to come up with a new plan?" Azula said sweetly. "No, I think my father has been imprisoned long enough. He will be freed sooner than that, I think!"

"And how is that going to happen?" someone asked.

She turned towards him, her smile wide and curving. "By going through with a version of the old plan that's not quite so grand, not quite so public. But a great victory doesn't need to be public. They'll either be expecting us to attack during the festivities or not at all. If we wait to think of a brand new plan, that will give them time to gather their resources to hunt us down. They won't be distracted by preparing for the celebration. So instead of attacking during it, we're going to attack before it even starts. They won't be expecting us because they think they've foiled our little scheme, and they'll be preoccupied with the preparations."

She described the same plan she had told Zuko just a little while ago. They nodded their heads. Relief seeped into their eyes as they realized that this would be a secret covert mission. That they wouldn't have to be involved personally, especially when she said, "I will, of course, handle Zuko. But I'll need Mai's father with me so that the act is seen for what it is, instead of for what it might be. It's well known that Zuko and I are enemies. We cannot let this become another incident of sibling rivalry for the throne, but rather an attempt at reinstating the rightful ruler of the Fire Nation."

Azula climbed onto the table so that she stared down at them. "I am Princess Azula, daughter of Ozai and Ursa, princess of the Fire Nation! I declare that my brother's rule is at an end, and a new age will begin! The celebration of the end of the 100 Years War and Zuko's coronation is coming. We'll be ready! We'll take back what was my father's, and what should have been yours!"

She raised her fist in the air, and they followed her, cheering.

Only Mai's father remained silent. Only Mai's father looked at her as if he was beginning to see through her, and Azula willed herself to firebend, for the flare of blue fire to come from her fist.

But there was nothing but the flickering lamplight and the treachery of the New Ozai Society surrounding her.


	47. Celebrate

It was the morning of the celebration. There was still dew on the grass and a chill in the air. Dawn was just a grey promise before it transformed into something pink and beautiful. Once it had been Azula's favorite time of the day as she waited to practice her firebending. But now it was just something that was there as they hastened to the palace, hoping that no one would notice them. They snuck into the palace without incident. Zuko had made it too easy for them to pass by unnoticed, unremarked, and Azula feared the New Ozai Society would notice, that they would wonder why, that they would suspect a trap.

But they didn't, and she wondered if they were really that ignorant of strategy and tactics or if they had simply underestimated Zuko, had underestimated her. Or perhaps they were so dazzled by the prize they thought awaited them at the end of their mission—striding across the Firelord's dais with the taste of victory and wine in their mouths, ready to share the news of Zuko's fall as his people filled their stomachs with sweet bread he had prepared for them—that they lost sight of the present.

Still, Zuko could have made it a little difficult for them. She ushered the high ranking officials to her room, assuring them that she would come for them soon, and they would receive their just reward. And then, with Ukano and a handful of men disguised as Zuko's guards, they stationed themselves in the hallway leading from Zuko's rooms, and waited. The plan was to attack when Zuko was nearly to the end of the hall, and the "guards" could cluster around his flank, front, and back, easily overpowering him and his company. They did not expect Zuko to have much in the way of protection, as he had never bothered with it before, and they were not too worried about the Kyoshi Warriors. Azula rolled her eyes at her brother's carelessness and at the Society's cavalier attitude. They would be in a surprise, and she hoped it would be one they wouldn't forget for a long time.

Azula kept still in the shadows at the far end of the hall. There was only one window, and it was facing the wrong direction to catch the rising sun. Zuko, with his retinue of Kyoshi guards, would be coming soon. Ukano was with her, and he kept looking at her sideways, as if he was trying to figure something out. She did not return his glance. Let him doubt himself and her. It was already too late. He thought he could handle whatever treachery or trap she had set for him, but he couldn't because he wasn't like her, he didn't know how to play the game like she did. He probably thought that she would only steal his victory and the power he hoped to gain for himself—not that she intended to betray him to Zuko personally. Soon, it wouldn't matter. Soon, it would be over, and Ukano would have nothing left—not even his dignity and maybe not even his life.

She wondered if Zuko had already neutralized the men she had left waiting in her room and the forces she had convinced to camp outside the city. If Zuko hadn't, it still didn't matter. Eventually the Society would fall—either now or later.

It was hard to wait, but then there was a flickering on the wall, as if someone bore many torches to light the way. She heard the tramp of feet, the swish of robes and she knew it was the Kyoshi Warriors who came. She snapped her fingers and stiffened to attention.

They rounded the corner. There was Zuko, in the center of it all. The flame of the Firelord glinted from his top-knot, and his regal robes fell to his feet. She hoped he could fight in it. If their plan failed he would need to—but they would not fail. Azula would not allow it.

He was surrounded by his friends, by people who were loyal to him. Mai walked beside him, regal in her dark clothes, her eyes keenly watching for any sign of movement, for any signs of betrayal. Azula hoped that Mai would trust Zuko, and would not be over-eager with the knives. And there were the Kyoshi Warriors, Suki at their head, and Ty Lee beside her, her long hair in a braid.

Azula smiled when she saw her. She was chattering gaily about the festival, about the red lanterns that she had helped hang, and how beautiful they would look when evening came. No one would guess that she suspected the ambush, no one would guess that she was prepared for anything.

It was time. Azula took a deep breath, and deviated from the plan she had made for the New Ozai Society. She stepped from the shadows when Zuko had barely entered the hall, when there were too few of Ukano's men to attack the rear of his procession.

Zuko stopped and the others stopped with him. Mai's knives flashed where she had hidden them with her long sleeves. Ty Lee smiled, her eyes were full of light despite the gloom. Azula raised her arms in greeting. "Good morning, Zuko! I hope you enjoy the gift I've brought for you," she said.

"Traitor!" Ukano shouted. At his command, half the guards went towards Zuko, the other half towards her.

Azula had been on the frontlines of a war before. She knew the noise, the pandemonium. She was ready for them with the small knife she had stolen and her knowledge of martial arts.

It was a quick fight. The New Ozai Society were outnumbered, left floundering by Azula's betrayal and how Zuko's retinue was more than ready for them. They surrendered when they saw their cause was hopeless. All except one, who pushed past Mai and fled down the hall, disappearing around a corner

It was Ukano, and Mai stared after him, knives raised as if she meant to throw them, but she never did.

"There's nowhere to run where I won't catch you!" Azula shouted as she tore past them, neatly dodging Mai's grasping hand, who had apparently recovered from her moment of hesitancy and indecision.

The old man was spry for his age, but there really was nowhere to go, and he did not know the palace like Azula did. In only a few minutes, Azula caught up with him, found him pacing in circles at a dead end. He wrung his hands. Panic sweated from him like an illness.

He caught sight of Azula, pointing a finger at her. "You! You lied to us! You betrayed us!"

"Like I haven't done that before!" Azula said mockingly. "What more would you expect from me? I betrayed my only friends, and I betrayed my brother, and now I'm betraying you." She stepped towards him, and he fell to his knees before her. She leaned down and gripped him by his robes, forcing him to stand as she shoved him against the wall. "Are you ready to find out how I deal with traitors? You'll find that I'm not as forgiving as my brother." Her hand trembled and she tightened her grip on Ukano to hide it. Suddenly, it was as if she were a child again, with Eun-jae defeated beneath her, and there was that pause, that moment where she could decide to do one thing, or she could decide another.

"I know that you don't have your firebending! I know that you're crazy and forgotten, someone who once was great but who's now just nothing. Your own brother sent you away, and your father abandoned you."

Azula tightened her grip until pain ached through her knuckles. "Not very smart things to say to a person who determines whether you live or die." She looked at him again, taking him in. This was the man who had formed the New Ozai Society, the one who would bring back Ozai, the man had who caused so much pain and suffering, the man who had banished Zuko and murdered her mother and who had tried to do the same against the entire world. This man wanted to bring it all back, and Ozai could not come back—he could not. It was hard to breathe, and Azula's heart began to thud against her chest.

She could do what Zuko would not do—she could kill him, as he richly deserved. She could do what Zuko would want her to do, which would be not to kill him. She wondered how much of that was his friendship with the Avatar, or how much of that was Zuko. Maybe it was both.

But she was not Zuko, and the Avatar was not her friend. She knew there were some people who would not stop. She could see it in Ukano's eyes, she could see it in the same way she had found her face in the spirit world. Even if the New Ozai Society was stopped today, even if every single leader and participant were imprisoned, Ukano would keep working to bring her father back. He would just find new ways to do it, and maybe next time he would be smarter about it, cleverer about it until it was too late.

The knife she had stolen was steady in her hand as she raised it, just as she had once raised her hand against the Avatar. The same detachment took over. There was no connection. Her hand had been lowered, and now it wasn't. The knife had just been something she held, and now it was poised to strike.

It was another war. There were always casualties in war.

"Azula!"

Both Azula and Ukano turned to see Mai standing there. She had knives in both hands, and she stood straight and tall as she stared at them.

"Mai!" He lunged beneath Azula's hands and Azula struck him in a place that made his legs go weak. She hadn't done it as well as Ty Lee would have, because she only had the memory of Ty Lee doing it to one of their enemies, not her training, but it was enough to make him go still again. "Don't let her hurt me!"

Mai approached without speaking. Her hair was a little longer, a little shinier. "What are you doing, Azula?"

"Capturing the leader of the New Ozai Society since apparently not a single person can manage it. And I've only been here for a few days while you've all been here for weeks." Azula said. "I'm not surprised that Zuko wouldn't do it—it's not in his nature. But that nobody else could—" she shook her head. "It almost makes me wonder where their loyalties lie. I would be concerned, Mai, very concerned at the sort of company that Zuko has employed to keep him and his people safe."

"That's my father," Mai said, "yet you accuse everyone but me of treachery."

Azula rolled her eyes. "Because I know how much you love Zuko. Perhaps it's blinded you. Or perhaps facing your father is just too difficult." She smiled sweetly at Mai. "I know what that's like—but this man isn't my father, and I know what needs to be done, and I can do it for you. Don't you want this one thing from me?"

She turned back to him. His hands were clinging to her wrist, as she had once clung to her own father so long ago.

"Don't do this," Mai said. "Let Zuko deal with him. It's his right, as Firelord."

Azula shook her head, squeezing her eyes shut. "You just want him to live because he's your father! But he's never cared about you, Mai, so why do you care so much about him? I'll be doing you a favor. You should be thanking me."

Mai folded her arms against her chest, knives stowed away at least for the moment. "You're projecting. Our fathers are the same, but I've moved on. Your father's gone, so you're looking for another one to take his place so you can say the things you never got to say or do the things you never got to do." She shrugged. "Zuko once told me that you needed time and space to make the right choice. It's been a long time, Azula, and you've been in the physical world and the spiritual world. So what are you going to do?"

Azula struggled to breathe. She looked at Ukano, at his pathetic face as he still clung to her, unable to truly fight her even though he had tried to kill Zuko. She looked at Mai, who was so resolute and so cold. She thought of the satchel belted to her waist, and she thought of the letters her mother had written to Zuko but not to her. She heard her mother wonder what was wrong with her, and she remembered how she had once called her a monster.

She looked over her shoulder to see if her mom was there, but she wasn't. The hurt ached and Azula squeezed her eyes shut against it. She looked at Mai, who stood as still as ever. She didn't plead. She didn't beg. She just did, just like she had done at the Boiling Rock. With sudden clarity, Azula knew that if she did this thing, no matter how much Ukano deserved it, then it would be just like it had been at the prison, and Azula would never see Mai's face again.

With another push at Ukano, Azula let him go and turned away. "Fine. If his life means that much to you then you're more than welcome to it."

Mai's father crawled across the floor so that he was at her feet blubbering his thanks. But Mai moved away from him. "Get away from me, Dad. You just tried to kill my boyfriend."

Azula stood with her arms crossed over her chest. She was cold and shivering and a clammy sweat beaded across her skin. She felt stupid, and she hated not being able to figure out what she was feeling.

She heard Zuko shouting and the pounding of people's feet. She didn't want to face them. She thought she was ready, but now she realized that she wasn't. The visit to Zuko's room felt distant and detached, like it hadn't happened, like it had only happened because they had to plan this. But now, their planning and their scheming was over, and there would only be the gaping chasm of what had happened before between them.

They eventually rounded the corner, and stopped when they saw Mai and Azula standing apart, Mai's father between them. Zuko gestured and the guards came forward, taking him away, probably for a fair trial or something.

Ty Lee broke from the Kyoshi Warriors and rushed towards Azula, flinging her arms around her shoulders as she wept. "I was so afraid, Azula! We didn't know when you were going to wake, and we had to leave! We were always going to come back for you, but then you came back to us. I'm so glad."

Azula stood stiffly in her embrace, only slowly putting her hands to Ty Lee's waist, as her eyes met Zuko's. He had gone to hold Mai's hand. She wanted to hug Ty Lee back, but she couldn't. Her arms wouldn't move. Everything felt like too much. There were too many people. Too many sounds. She needed to be alone. She needed the quiet.

"What's wrong?" Ty Lee asked, finally, as she stepped back, looking at her. Her hand reached for the ragged edge of her hair, but Azula dipped her head away as she forced herself to smile.

"Everything's fine, Ty Lee. We've achieved a major victory today." Zuko tried to catch her eye, but she turned her face away. Shame washed over her, and she didn't understand why. She had done everything he hadn't been able to, he was alive today because of her—so why did she still feel so empty? Why did she feel like it didn't mean anything?

Instead, she unbuckled the satchel that held Ursa's letters and her gold flame, and walked towards Zuko, pressing it into his hands. "These are for you," she said.

He took the satchel from her, looking at it. "Thank you." He smiled at her softly.

She shook her head. "You should probably get back so the people can begin the festivities. They'll all be wondering what to do without you."

"Won't you join us?" Zuko said, almost as if he was hoping she actually would.

"I don't believe I will," Azula said. "I'm in dire need of a bath and a real bed on which to sleep. Honestly, Zuko, I don't know how you managed it for three years." She looked at him quickly, sneaking a glance that caught his eye. "But I'm tired and need to sleep. No disturbances."

And then she slipped between them, going swiftly through the hallways until she came to her old room. She hadn't gone inside when she had brought the Society to hide, so she didn't know what to expect. She put her hand over her mouth when she saw it had not been changed at all. Zuko had even replaced the mirror that she had broken. Her room was clean, as if she had never been gone. There was not even dust.

It was as if he had made sure that it would always be ready for her, no matter when she returned.

She ran water into the tub, water that was too hot after she had been cold for so long, and she eased herself carefully into it, not caring that it burned.

With a sigh, she leaned her head against the tub, and finally rested. The aches of her journey seemed to drift with the water. She used the scented soaps and she no longer smelled like air and land. She scrubbed between her toes, looking at the calluses that had formed on the balls and heels of her feet.

Then she scrubbed the dirt from under her fingernails.

When she rose from the tub, the water was pale with soap, and she watched it circle down the drain with something that felt like satisfaction. She dressed in her silk red robes with the gold trim. It had been so long since she had worn red. It had been so long since she had worn something so soft.

After she knotted the sash around her waist, she approached the mirror. Her hair was short and shaggy, like Zuko's once had been, and she ran her fingers through it before tying it up in a small top-knot with a bit of ribbon.

She looked a little more like herself when she had done that, except for the eye in the center of her forehead. She hated it, this gift from the spirit world, and so she scowled.

Holding her breath, she looked for her mother to appear in the mirror as she once had so long ago, but there was only herself staring out from it.

Suddenly, hard and fiercely, Azula missed her, and she turned away as she undid her hair and went to bed. But she could not keep her eyes closed for long, and she stared at the ceiling wondering if this was it, if this was all that waited for her.

She thought it would feel differently. She thought it would feel more like home.


	48. Tyzula

Ty Lee could hardly focus as she ran through the palace, Zuko leading the way even though she and the other Kyoshi Warriors had told him over and over that they could not protect him if he kept putting himself in danger. He never listened, of course, just like Azula never listened.

Azula—she was back. Ty Lee could barely believe it when she had first seen her step in the hallway betraying Zuko's enemies—so different, and so changed, only recognizable by the glint in her eyes. And then she was gone, gone again like she was always gone as she had taken off running after Mai's father.

But they had caught up with all three of them, eventually, and Azula was just as fierce, just as dangerous, without her firebending. She had been ready to kill with her bare hands until Mai had talked her down.

And then Azula had left—without saying anything to any of them, without even giving Ty Lee a decent hug—she had just left, again, when she had been gone for so long, when Ty Lee was still missing her so desperately. They could have been together again, but Azula had just walked away as if she didn't care about anything that had happened, about anything that could happen.

The guards had taken Mai's father away. Zuko stood, still and silent, staring after the hall down which his sister had disappeared. He looked like he wanted to say something, to do something, but Ty Lee didn't know what that could be. She had thought everything was alright between him and Azula, but as she saw the way his throat moved up and down, at the way he went as if to go after her before stopping himself, she suddenly wasn't sure.

Mai looked between Ty Lee and Zuko, her eyes rolling. "You know that nothing will happen if you both just stand there. If you want to talk, then go after her. It's not as if the people can't celebrate without you."

"She said no disturbances," Zuko said, after a long a pause.

Mai huffed a sigh. "I forgot she was still the Firelord and could do whatever she wanted."

Zuko looked at her. "Just because I could follow her doesn't mean I will. She needs her space."

Mai shrugged. Ty Lee figured that Mai would understand that best of all. Nobody needed more time or space as Mai did.

"Your re-union wouldn't be the heartfelt thing you'd thought it be," Mai said. "I could have told you that. You can either go after her and try to make it the way you want it to be, or you can come back with me to the celebration, and she'll come to you when she's ready. It's not like she hasn't done that before."

Zuko looked at the satchel Azula had given him. Ty Lee desperately wanted to know what was in it, but she couldn't ask something so personal. "We'll go to the celebration. If Azula wishes to join us there she is more than welcome to."

"I'll keep an eye on Azula," Ty Lee said. "Just in case she decides she wants some company." Or in case she decided to leave without saying goodbye—again.

Zuko nodded. "She's probably in her rooms anyway. Thanks, Ty Lee, for everything."

"I didn't do anything," Ty Lee said, but he was already gone, following Mai and the other guards to the celebration. He would be late, but no one would care as long as the rice wine kept coming.

Ty Lee went to Azula's room. It had been a long time since she had been there, not since they were very young and very new friends with each other. Azula had been proud of her bedroom—how neat she kept it, how fine the bed was, how lush and soft the pillows. But then, as they had gotten a little older, she had stopped. They had played mainly out of doors. They had played tricks on Zuko and Mai, and they had laughed.

Ty Lee felt a twinge of guilt at that, and she looked over her shoulder. But Mai was past those times, and so should she.

Ty Lee wondered if Azula was, or if the old patterns would pick up again.

But the patterns hadn't started during their journeys, even though they almost had. Even though they had crossed so many paths and been to so many places.

The door to Azula's room was closed, but there was a shaft of light, and a pacing shadow. Azula only ever paced if something was wrong, and something was almost always wrong.

Ty Lee's heart sank as she watched the shadow circle over and over until it finally disappeared and the room flipped to darkness. There was a gentle rustle that was Azula climbed into bed. Ty Lee pushed herself from the wall.

Her muscles ached from standing so still for so long, barely moving in case Azula sensed her, in case Azula heard her. She would be upset, Ty Lee thought, if she knew that Ty Lee were here, just waiting to make sure she was okay because Azula was always okay.

Just another one of her lies.

Ty Lee sat in front of the door so that people going in or out would have to go through her. And then, the next thing she knew, she was blinking sleep out of her eyes through a haze of lamplight. Azula gazed down at her, one hand resting against her hip.

"What are you doing here?" Azula asked. "You should be sleeping in your own room, not on the floor."

Ty Lee flushed as she scrambled to her feet. She shouldn't have fallen asleep—how could she? And to think that Azula should find her here, lingering like some kind of wanting, desperate thing.

"You said no disturbances," Ty Lee said, as if that would explain everything. As if that would explain the hurt at being left behind.

"And yet here you are." Azula gestured grandly as if Ty Lee had brought an entire retinue of people with her. "What are you doing here? Afraid I'm going to run off again, and that you'll have to take me back kicking and screaming so that I'll behave myself? Did Zuko set you up to this?"

Ty Lee gripped her Kyoshi kamino in her fists. Her mouth twisted. "I can't believe you, Azula. You still think that everything is about you!" Which didn't make sense considering Azula was the only reason she was here—but Ty Lee just shook her head. "After all this time, after everything, you just cast me aside—again! Like you did at the prison. Is this punishment?" She could feel her eyes fill with tears, and she wiped them away with her knuckles. "Because we left you at the South Pole? We had no choice, Azula! You were sick, and you weren't waking up no matter how many times we asked you to. What would you have us do! Just stay there while the New Ozai Society wreaked havoc?" She stepped closer to Azula, whose expression hadn't changed, as if she wasn't even really listening. "Do you even know how it felt when Mai said she had heard you plotting with her father? Do you know how for a moment, I thought that everything had been for nothing? But then you weren't with them! You're with us, you're with Zuko, and you're amazing and wonderful, and then you just leave again as if nothing mattered, as if I didn't matter!" The tears came freely, and Ty Lee wiped them angrily away. Azula had no time for tears. She didn't respect them.

Azula said nothing, only stepped aside as she opened the door wider. "Feel free to make yourself comfortable."

Ty Lee stared at her for a moment, before taking advantage of the opportunity while it was still there. She went to the bed, and sat down. It was soft, and sank under her weight. But Azula didn't join her. She drifted towards the mirror on the other side of the room, looking into it as if she sought for something and not because she was vain—though Azula certainly could be vain if she wanted to. Ty Lee really did think she was the prettiest girl in the whole world, and Azula herself always made sure she looked perfect because she had to.

But she didn't look perfect today. Her face was wan and pale. Her short hair was tangled and eschew—and Ty Lee couldn't help but wonder what had happened. Had someone done it to her, or had she done it to herself?

It didn't matter. She was still the prettiest girl Ty Lee had ever known.

"Why didn't you wait for us in the South Pole?" Ty Lee finally asked, pulling Azula's attention from the mirror back to her. "You didn't have to do it by yourself."

"Yes, I did." Azula finally turned towards her, but her hands were clasped behind her back, and she stood rigid, as if at attention. "I've always had to do it by myself. There's nothing wrong with that. It means I'm strong."

"We would have come back for you," Ty Lee said. "We would have, I promise."

"Chief Hakoda said that Zuko's life was in danger," Azula said. "When I have ever sat and waited for anything?"

Ty Lee twisted what coverlets remained on the bed with her fingers. "He shouldn't have told you that."

"You know how difficult it is to refuse me when I want something. I can be very persuasive." A shadow of the smile that Ty Lee had once known—had once adored, had once feared—flickered across her face, but then it was gone.

An expanse of room separated them. Ty Lee jittered on the bed, wondering why Azula was standing so still, wondering why Azula had actually invited her in.

"You need to relax, Ty Lee," Azula said when silence finally filled the distance between them. "It must have been very difficult for you, keeping watch over this terrible time. You should have gone to the celebration instead of following little old me. I know how much you enjoy such things."

Ty Lee could be less interested in the celebration, even though she could hear the last lingering remnants of it. Someone was drunkenly singing one of the country songs that she used to know by heart but had forgotten. "You could have sent a letter letting us know you were leaving the South Pole! You could have let us help you."

Azula's face hardened. Her voice snapped. "I did, but it was intercepted. I kept thinking, as I was traipsing halfway across the Earth Kingdom and the Fire Nation, why haven't they come for me?" She started pacing, tapping her chin. "Why aren't they afraid that I'll do something horrible? Not that I was going to do anything, of course, but getting caught by the Avatar and Zuko was definitely part of my plan for getting here as quickly possible. But they never came, and eventually I found out the New Ozai Society was intercepting Zuko's mail. What was I supposed to do? Send another letter letting them know I knew what they were up to just so I could assure everyone that I was actually on Zuko's side?" She scowled scornfully. "No thank you."

"Oh." Ty Lee's voice was small. "I hadn't known they were intercepting his letters."

Azula stretched, raising her hands towards the ceiling so that the sleeves of her red silk robe fell to her elbows. "Apparently, nobody knew. I fully intend on speaking to Zuko about it tomorrow. I'm sure it hardly matters now with the leader of the New Ozai Society in custody, but one can never be too careful." She started to pace again. "You never know when someone is going to decide to carry on somebody else's work."

"That's a wonderful idea, Azula," Ty Lee said. She tried to make her voice ring just as girlish as it had always been when she was with Azula—so deferential, so admiring. She tried to smile the same way too, but it felt wrong, as if it didn't fit anymore, as if too many things had changed for anything to go back to the way they had been before.

Silence fell between them again.

"Why won't you sit with me, Azula?" Ty Lee asked, patting to a spot next to her. "You are so far away. Are you angry with me, for leaving you?" But of course she would be. Azula valued loyalty—well, at least when it suited her. Leaving people behind wasn't loyalty, even though Azula could leave anybody behind whenever she wanted. But Azula never saw herself as the disloyal one. It was always somebody else. Ty Lee knew she should be angry at the unfairness of it, but instead she just hurt.

Azula looked at the place beside Ty Lee and, slowly, crossed the distance between them. She sat down, gingerly, beside her. "I'm not angry with you," Azula said. She took Ty Lee's hands, and Ty Lee remained very still as she held them. It had been so long, and Ty Lee felt her throat swell with all the things she wanted to say, but she couldn't think of the words.

Slowly, Azula pulled off the green lined gloves that were part of Ty Lee's Kyoshi garb. She let them fall to the floor before cradling Ty Lee's hands in hers. Azula's hands were no longer soft as they once had been. Hard nubbed callouses had grown across her palm, and there was a thick one on her thumb that scraped against Ty Lee's skin.

Ty Lee could barely breathe. Her heart fluttered somewhere in her throat. She felt she should say something, but what was there to say? For a brief moment, she remembered the fog and the memory it had shown her—when Azula had caressed her with her hand in her hair and then had pushed her away. But now her hands were rough, and Azula was leaning closer.

"I'm sorry," Azula said. Her head was bent, staring at their held hands between them.

Ty Lee could hardly believe what she had heard. "For what?"

Azula kept her head bowed. "For everything. For being cruel to you, for bullying you, for scaring you, for risking your life, for forcing you to choose between me or Mai, for banishing you. I am sorry for all of it. It was wrong of me to do those things to you."

Ty Lee gently put her two fingers beneath Azula's chin so that she could raise her gaze. Their eyes met. "You know I forgave you a long time ago? You know that right?"

Azula nodded.

Ty Lee smiled a little as she pulled a small square cloth from her pocket. "You're crying," she said.

Azula daubed her cheek with her hand, as if she hadn't realized, and laughed a short, sharp laugh when she saw the tears smeared on her skin. She took the cloth from Ty Lee. "So are you," Azula said, as she wiped Ty Lee's tears so gently from her cheeks.

"But I always cry," Ty Lee said. "You know that."

"I know."

They were apart again, but Ty Lee reached for her, clasping her in an embrace that was as tight as when she had seen Azula at the circus, when she thought, maybe, that Azula had come to actually see her, instead of to coerce her into joining her on some mission. Azula's shoulders were so thin, but her skin smelled sweetly of cinnamon, and Ty Lee kept embracing her until she felt Azula return it. Azula's hands were splayed wide across her back, and Ty Lee closed her eyes at her touch.

Azula let her hands drop, and Ty Lee released her, but she kept her wrists relaxed on Azula's shoulders as she stared at her. The eye did not frighten her. Azula's eyes did not frighten her at all.

"I can't stop looking at you," Ty Lee said.

"You should because I look terrible." Azula's hands reached for her hair, tugging at the short ends of it, as if she could will it to grow faster and longer at her whim.

Ty Lee cupped Azula's hands in her palms. "I think you look just as lovely as you always have."

Azula rolled her eyes, her gaze shifting away. "You don't have to flatter me anymore. That's one of the things I was apologizing for, though maybe I should have said so more clearly than I did."

"I wasn't," Ty Lee said. "I was being serious. I think you're beautiful." And then she leaned forward to do something she had never dared do before, because she knew that Azula would never allow it, that Azula would use it against her even more cruelly than she used their friendship. Ty Lee kissed her softly, briefly on the mouth. She pulled away, and put her hand again to Azula's cheek. "I've always thought that you were beautiful."

Azula's attention snapped back to Ty Lee. "What are you doing?"

"Mai told me that I shouldn't come because I was half in love with you," Ty Lee said. "But she was wrong because I've never been half in love with you. I think I've loved you for the longest time, even though I knew I shouldn't. Even though I knew you would only hurt me. But I don't think you're like that anymore, and if you were, I don't think I'd care. I'd love you anyway."

Azula's eyes closed. "Ty Lee," she said. She pulled Ty Lee's hands from her face, holding them gently.

"What is it?" Ty Lee asked. "What's wrong?"

"I don't know. I'm a little surprised, I suppose. I hadn't realized. Or maybe I did. I don't know."

Ty Lee withdrew from her, her hands sliding from Azula's light touch. "That's okay. I just wanted you to know, in case you decided to disappear again—in case, for whatever reason, I never got to see you again."

"I'm not going anywhere, Ty Lee. I'm just glad to be home, after all this time. And I'm glad that you're here instead of on Kyoshi Island. I don't think I would have been welcome there if I had wanted to visit you."

Ty Lee forced herself to smile, to laugh and say probably so—because it wasn't as if Azula were lying.

But Ty Lee had wanted—something. Something more from Azula, and it was easy to think that maybe she was holding back, like she was afraid or guilty. But she couldn't think like that. She had fantasized enough when Azula was unreachable, and untouchable.

It was time to be reasonable, to talk about this—when they were both ready.

Azula yawned, and Ty Lee made to rise. "Would you like me to go now?"

"You can do as you like," Azula said. "I am not going to stop you."

Ty Lee wondered what that meant.

Azula sighed. "It would be a shame for you to go back to your post at my door. The floor is so uncomfortable—I would know, I've slept on it often enough. Did you know that the only reason I woke up to find you sitting there all alone was because I had woken up on the floor? Almost as if this bed was just too soft, something to be rejected." She smoothed her hands over the broad expanse of the mattress, of the coverlets. "I see no reason why a bed such as this should be ignored in favor of the floor. Perhaps you would prefer to sleep here for the remainder of the night?"

Ty Lee blinked at her, wondering if Azula was trying to—what? Flirt with her? Or was she just offering something she thought would be more comfortable? Then she shook her head, smiling. She had made her intentions clear. If Azula wanted to play around it—well, that would be very much in Azula's nature. "Will you be sleeping on the bed too?"

"Until I inevitably find my way back to the floor," Azula said, her brow arching. But then she looked uncertain, questioning. "Is that alright?"

Ty Lee wanted to remind Azula that this was her bed, but she didn't. "Yes, it is."

They positioned themselves, side by side. They didn't speak, though Ty Lee had so many questions. She wanted to know if Azula had found Ursa, if she was still unable to firebend, what would happen the next morning when they woke—but she didn't say anything. There was a space between them, something that grew smaller and smaller as time passed, as their hands found each other, and they held each other, until sleep came for them both.

When Ty Lee woke with the sun shining brightly through the windows, she thought she was alone as Azula was no longer a warm presence beside her. She tried to tell herself that it was nothing, that she didn't care, but just as she was about to leap out of bed to find her, she found Azula just where she said she'd be—there, on the floor, sleeping soundly.

Ty Lee took a moment to smile at her fondly before gently nudging her shoulder with her bare foot. "Wake up, sleepyhead. Weren't you always telling me that firebenders rose with the sun? Well, the sun is already risen and leaving you behind."

Azula's eyes fluttered open as she rose to a sitting position. "That might make sense if I were still a bender. But now, I can sleep in on this luxurious carpet."

"Oh," Ty Lee said. She wondered if she were sad, or if she was secretly hoping that Azula would not regain her firebending, if she would be a nonbender just like her. What if the fire made her mean again?

Azula looked at her strangely. "Don't look so sad on my account. It's nothing. It's been a year that I've been without it. I've moved on."

"Azula—" Ty Lee reached for her, but Azula moved away.

"I need to speak with Firelord Zuko," Azula said. "I had meant to go to him sooner but apparently I slept instead."

"You needed the rest," Ty Lee said.

Azula's eyes hardened. "I don't need rest. I need to speak with Zuko." She ran her fingers through her hair and scowled at her reflection in the mirror.

"Alright," Ty Lee said. "May I join you later?"

Azula smiled at her—a smile that Ty Lee hadn't seen before. It looked gentle on her. "You may join me whenever you like, Ty Lee. Just—not for this meeting as I would like to speak with him in private. I'm sure you understand."

Ty Lee laughed as Azula looked at her so long it almost turned to awkwardness. Then she shook herself and disappeared through the door, closing it gently behind her. Ty Lee laid back down, sprawled across the entire length of Azula's bed, and put her hand to her mouth as she smiled.


	49. Avatar Talk

Azula stopped in the grand room where the portraits of the previous Firelords hung. They were as grand as she remembered. She stopped beneath the one of her father, her neck craned back so she could see his face. He was not smiling, as none of his other predecessors had.

Zuko, despite being Firelord for nearly a year, hadn't had one painted of him yet. She remembered what she had told him: make sure they capture your good side. Good advice for anyone, she figured, but she had meant it meanly.

She reached out to touch the painting of her father. It felt rich and soft and she closed her eyes. The thoughts she had been refusing to acknowledge pressed around her again. Ty Lee had forgiven her. Ty Lee believed there was something more than friendship between them.

Azula's eyes snapped open and she found her father's unmoving face. She could smell the tea again. She could see the steam twisting between her father and her mother as he had leaned over the space between them and touched her.

Azula covered her eyes with her hands, and forced herself to take a deep breath, forced herself to turn away from the portrait and to find Zuko before he got caught up in the day-to-day affairs of whatever it was he did as Firelord. But, even as she hastened down the halls, Azula could not stop thinking about Ty Lee. Even now, Azula could feel the distance between them widening as doubts and questions formed like vapor and then disappeared.

In some ways she was repulsed, and yet she wanted to go back to Ty Lee too. She wanted it to work because it could be different for them. It could be, it had to be.

She forced herself to focus as she approached Zuko's room. The door was open, and she peeked inside. The room was empty, and she rolled her eyes at the prospect of actually having to look for him. He could be anywhere, and though it was true she did have all day to find him, she didn't want to spend the time doing it.

The satchel she had given him was empty on his desk. The letters were unbound and opened, neatly laid out. He had read them. She approached slowly. She wondered if he'd cried.

The papers were so thin they rustled as she approached. Her hands reached for them, but then she turned aside.

She shouldn't be here. There was no place for her here.

Without looking further, she rushed from his chambers. She went to the throne room, but he was not there either.

Azula supposed that she could have asked the guards where he was, where he was hiding, but it was also nice wandering the palace. Her hands trailed along the walls. It was nice being home again.

How she had missed this place.

Eventually, she neared the exit to the gardens, and she finally saw him. He was with the Avatar while Mai and Katara watched them from one of the stone benches underneath a mimosa tree. Green shadow dappled their skin, and Mai was almost smiling as she spoke softly to Katara.

Zuko and the Avatar were doing some kind of exercise, and Azula started when she recognized some of the forms. Zuko had used the same techniques against her after he had joined the Avatar. She watched them more closely. It did not look like the form was meant to be combative, but rather something else, something different.

It was so warm that both the Avatar and Zuko were bare chested, and she could see the scars her lightning had left on them both. Something sickened in her, and her eyes closed as she pressed her head against the stone wall. It was cool against the heat, and she focused on that. There was no time for guilt. It had happened. She had done it. The only thing she could do now was move forward from it, and to be glad that Katara had been there to heal them both.

For a moment longer she watched from the shadows, feeling like the same small child who had seen everything from behind the curtains. It was so strange to see Zuko surrounded by friends. She didn't remember him having any when he was growing up. He only ever had Mom, and then Uncle.

She frowned. Something negative and sharp dug at her. It wasn't fair, she thought. But they had not always been his friends. Some of them had been his enemies. Things changed. They would for her too. She forced herself to step forward into the sunlight, to come out to the very edge of the garden where stone turned to lush foliage. She watched them openly with her arms folded across her chest.

They noticed her in a few moments, and they stopped what they were doing.

"Oh, it's you," Mai said, immediately rising from the bench like Azula was some kind of threat.

Katara had fallen silent, but her eyes were keen. Azula noticed the water she kept strapped to her side.

Zuko and the Avatar looked over their shoulders. "Azula," Zuko said. "I went to find you but you were sleeping."

The Avatar bowed to her as he wished her a good morning. He was the very image of respect. Azula looked at him a moment, wondering how he could be so polite towards her. There was no need for it, even if they hadn't been enemies for so long. What did he want from her?

"One does tend to sleep after a long journey," Azula said. She nodded slightly to the others.

Mai looked at her stiffly. "Thank you for your help in apprehending my father."

"It was my pleasure," Azula said. "If you don't mind, everyone, I would like to speak with my brother alone. Don't worry, I'm not going to try anything."

Zuko nodded, and Mai looked at her again before taking her leave, Katara close beside her. The Avatar called back, hands to his mouth, "I'll see you later!"

"Mai is cheerful as ever I see," Azula said, as she watched them disappear. The Avatar seemed relentlessly cheerful too, but that seemed normal for him. "You'd think that she'd be happier, all things considered."

"Her father is in jail for treason, Azula," Zuko said. "Give her a break."

"Our father is in jail for war crimes against the Earth Kingdom but you don't see us being gloomy about it. Besides, Mai's father wasn't a good father, as far as fathers go at least. She should be glad it turned out this way. After all, some people never get what they deserve."

Zuko sighed.

"What?" Azula said. "I didn't say anything mean."

"I know." Zuko looked around and then he gestured towards the turtle-duck pond. "Sit with me, for a moment."

Azula bowed, a little deeper than necessary to be absolutely respectful. "As the Firelord commands." She dropped a wink to let him know that she wasn't being bitter, that she was just teasing.

As they neared the pond, the turtle-ducks fled from their shadows, clustering towards the farther end of the water. Azula wondered if they remembered her, even though she did not know why they would. She'd been gone for a year. But the turtle-ducks always ran from. They knew what she offered them.

They settled themselves in the prickly grass, and Azula stared moodily at the ducks. Tapping her shoulder, Zuko handed her a crust of bread. He had another for himself. Rolling her eyes, she took it from him.

"Where did you find our mother?" he said. He tossed a nibble of bread to one of the ducks, and they dove into the water after it.

Azula, who hadn't had breakfast yet, took a bite of her own bread. It was a little stale, but it still tasted good. "In a cave. She was trying to reach you, if that makes you feel better. But apparently Father heard about it and he sent an assassin after her—a combustion bender, by the look of the rubble. She crawled into a cave for shelter and the whole thing was blown shut on top of her." Azula turned her face away.

"How do you know she was trying to find me?" Zuko said.

"If I told you," Azula said, "you'd say I was crazy."

He looked at her as if she'd slapped him. "You know I wouldn't say that."

He had before though, just like his Uncle. Azula smoothed her clothes against her knees. Bread crumbs fell into the grass. "I don't know what'd you say. But if you must know, I'd see her sometimes. We spoke together, even though I knew it wasn't really her. She told me she was looking to join you in one of these hallucinations. But I'm sure it's true. She loved you. When you were banished too, it was only natural she'd join you, just like it was only natural that he'd kill her for doing so. I think he always regretted not killing her for what she did to Grandfather Azulon. Maybe he still loved her in some way, and that's why he didn't. But after three years of absence—well, anything can die if it's not properly tended to. Or he just realized he loved himself more." She shrugged.

"I feel like I still don't know what happened that night," Zuko said. He pinched the bridge of his nose and scowled.

"I remember that night, perfectly," Azula said. "And there's really not much to say. Father was going to kill you, Mother said that she'd kill Grandfather Azulon to put him on the throne. Then he banished her because someone needed to pay the price. And then he couldn't risk her returning for so many reasons. I bet if you were to ask him, he'd be more than willing to explain each one. Or you could just take my word for it and realize that if she came back, then she could tell the whole world his position as Firelord was a complete lie. That if she came back, you'd realize that you didn't need him anymore, as if you ever did."

"I suppose that makes sense." Zuko kept tossing bread so that the ducks would have to swim closer to them to eat it. Even now they were nearly halfway across the pond.

Azula leaned back against the grass, closing her eyes against the hot sun. "I have something to tell you, Zuko. I visited Father very early on—before I asked you to let me go so we could find out what happened to our mother. He was angry at me for losing my firebending—I could only imagine him now, one year and a journey in the spirit world later, and still no bending!" She stopped to laugh, bitterly, and then silenced herself. There was no need to be dramatic. "So he told me to restore it so I could free him from his prison. And that's why I told you I wanted to restore my honor." She opened one eye, and glanced at him. "It was very foolish of you to let me go, Zuzu."

He shoved her gently with his bare feet. "I don't regret the decision, and I'd make it again. And as far as I can tell, it was the right decision."

Her throat swelled as she looked at him again, eyes catching sight of the scar. Then she looked away. "Did you read the letters I brought you?"

"I did," he said. "I am—very glad to have had the opportunity to do that. Thank you, Azula, for bringing them to me. And her hairpiece, as well. That was kind of you. I'm surprised you're not wearing it, actually."

"She didn't leave anything for me," Azula said. "Why would I wear it?"

Zuko stretched beside her, propping himself on an elbow. "What do you mean she didn't leave anything for you?"

"Exactly what I said," Azula said, feeling snappish. It hurt that Mom hadn't written her—of course it hurt. The conversations she had had with Ursa were words she wished had been spoken between them—not something that had actually happened. "You should save the hairpiece for Mai. I'm sure she would look very pretty in it. And she would be flattered that you would give her something so special. She might even smile."

They sat like that in silence for a while, soaking in the sun. Azula could not remember the last time she had been at rest, when she had not been struggling to go from one place to another, to find new ways to make Ozai smile at her, to be proud of her. Here, there was only the grass and the sun and Zuko's company. Her eyes grew heavy, and she was almost asleep before Zuko interrupted her.

"I think that I might have something for you."

Azula opened her eye, squeezing the other tight against the glare of the sun. "Is it something of Mom's because if it is, I don't want it."

"No, it's something from our Great-Grandfather," Zuko said.

Azula scoffed and closed her eye again. "Then I want it even less. I am sure that Sozin was just as hateful a man as Ozai and Azulon. Why would I want anything of his?"

"Our other great-grandfather," Zuko said.

Azula heard him climbing to his feet, and then his shadow fell over her.

"Come on," he said. "Come with me."

She saw that he was holding his hand out for her. After a few moments' hesitation, she gripped his hand, and he helped haul her to her feet. Of course she was aware that Avatar Roku was her other great-grandfather. It wasn't something she'd been particularly proud of at the time. Still, she listened when Zuko told her in detail the story of their friendship and Sozin's subsequent betrayal and murder.

"I never knew this before," he said, as he entered his room with Azula behind him. "I think Uncle Iroh wanted me to find out because he gave me this."

He opened a drawer and took out another ceremonial hairpiece, something that Azula had not seen for a long time, and even then, it had only been a painting in a history book. Many people thought the piece had been lost forever. She remembered Ozai being upset at its absence. "But that's what the crown prince is supposed to wear," Azula said.

Zuko nodded. "Sozin had given it to Ruko when he had to leave his earthly possessions behind. It's a symbol of their friendship, and how it failed because of Sozin's greed and hate. I think about that sometimes—you know, how he killed Roku on the volcano, and then tried to kill him again by wiping out the air nomads. And how we carried that in our family—in our grandfather, our father, even in us."

Azula folded her arms tightly across her belly. She had almost succeeded. She had almost fulfilled Sozin's last and dying wish—that his friend, his best friend, be killed in the Avatar state so that he would never come back again.

"I'll never forget what Uncle Iroh said to me when I confronted him about this. I was so upset, and so angry, and so lost. But he said that evil and good are always at war inside me. That it's my nature, my legacy. That I could resolve what had happened in the past because the Avatar and the Firelord were my family, and that the ability to restore balance was born in me. That's when he gave me this." He looked at her as he held the hairpiece. "Do you remember? You said something similar to me, even though you were just trying to manipulate me into letting you go. But you were right, more right than you could have ever realized, and Uncle Iroh was wrong, because you do share this legacy, you do share this struggle. I'm not the only one who can restore the honor the Fire Nation, and I don't want to be. I don't have to do this alone, just like you don't have to."

Azula stared at the piece as it rested in the hollow of Zuko's hand. "Sometimes, when I was wandering in the spirit world, I would think about coming back and standing beside you instead of against you. I thought about how we balanced each other out—our strengths and our weaknesses. Of course, I didn't necessarily have Roku and Sozin in mind at the time, but I suppose it's an apt comparison."

Zuko smiled at her and he moved to stand behind her. She stepped aside but he said, "No, stay still. Please."

She did as he asked, and shivered when she felt his hands in her hair.

"I think your hair is shorter than mine when we met in Ba Sing Se," he said.

She rolled her eyes. "Your hair was out of control in Ba Sing Se."

"There," he said, as he finished with whatever he was doing. He put his hands on her shoulders and guided her towards the mirror in his room.

He had put her hair in a top-knot, secured with the hairpiece. With Roku's hairpiece. "I shouldn't wear this," she said.

She went to remove it, but paused when he asked, "Why not?"

"Because I tried to kill the Avatar, dum-dum, and if you ask anyone who was there, I practically succeeded. He has the scar to prove it." She walked away from him. "And then I gave you a scar to match his. The only legacy that I've carried out is Sozin's. Not Roku's."

"Well, that was Sozin's before it was Roku's," Zuko said.

"Don't try to make me laugh! It's not funny, it's not okay to laugh." She looked at her empty hands. Her skin was cold and clammy. They had not shot fire or lightning for a long time. It was the price she paid for what she had done, and she did not believe her bending would ever be restored because the price could never be repaid.

"Azula, I've forgiven you—I forgave you when I saw you chained to that grate," Zuko said. "I knew when I challenged you that something was wrong. If I could do it again—I don't think I'd fight you. I should have tried to find another way. You weren't well, and though that doesn't excuse you cheating and trying to kill Katara and almost killing me—I know that you deserve a second chance, just like I did. I know that you were lost and I know that you made mistakes and I know that you can choose to do good because we can all do that." He fell silent. His hair fell over his eyes like a curtain. His voice was soft and breaking. "Don't you remember that I was with you when you tried to kill Aang? You may have been the one that struck the killing blow—but I chose the same as you did, Azula. And then I tried to cover it up and sent an assassin after them. I'm not blameless in what happened either—and I never will be, and that's something that I have to live with too. That we both have to live with."

Azula was silent for a moment. "You really need to work on your pep talks."

"You're not the first one who's told me that." Zuko put his hand on her shoulder. "Keep it, please. I can think of no one it would suit better."

Azula looked at herself in the mirror again, observed the way the flames rose on either side of her topknot. Imagined how it must have looked on Sozin, and then on Roku. Her face looked wan and pale in the reflection, and she couldn't stop herself from looking for Ursa to appear in the background—but she didn't come. Perhaps she would be pleased with the new way she wore her hair. Or perhaps she would be hurt that her daughter wouldn't wear the one thing that could have been hers. Or maybe none of that mattered anymore.

"Alright," Azula said, finally relenting. "I'll keep it. But only because you're insisting so hard. I would hate to disappoint the Firelord."

"I don't know about that," Zuko said. "Come on, there's one other thing I want to show you."

He walked out of his room, and led her back to the garden. "Are you saying, Zuko, that you made me leave my very comfortable spot on the grass, to walk all the way to your room, and then all the way back to the very same place we left? Do you have any idea how exhausted I am from walking?"

"I might have a vague idea," Zuko said. "But I think you'll like this." He stood standing, with one knee bent and raised, arms outstretched. "Mirror me," he said.

Azula did so. And then he adopted another pose, and then another. They were the same ones that he and the Avatar had been practicing earlier. "I recognize these forms," Azula said. "I wondered where you had learned them—it wasn't something I recognized, and honestly, I thought I had taught you everything you know."

Zuko laughed. "Not quite. This is a firebending form called the Dancing Dragon. I learned this after I left to rejoin the Avatar. Aang and I actually learned it together."

"Did it help your bending?" Azula asked, though she didn't quite see how it could. It wasn't like the other firebending forms she had ever learned.

"It did," Zuko said. "It made me understand that I didn't understand fire at all. It's not just consumption and destruction. It's life. It's warmth. It's comfort. It doesn't have to be fueled by hate and rage and shame. There's another way, a better way. Fire is love and kindness too."

Azula rolled her eyes even as she listened carefully. She was never a huge fan of this mushy stuff, but it reminded her of what her mother had kept telling her, when she was physically there and in her imaginations. Love, kindness, trust.

"You have the steps memorized?" Zuko asked after he had run it through with her several times.

"Of course, I have them memorized," she replied. "They weren't that difficult."

"It's best for two people to do this together. We start side by side, and then you lean right, and I'll lean left so that we travel in a circle. If we do it right, if we do it in sync, we'll end together, with our hands nearly touching."

"And how am I supposed to make sure I'm keeping pace with you if our backs are turned?" This was definitely more Ty Lee's thing, Azula realized. She worked together with people all the time, trusting they would be there to catch her when she fell, and them trusting her that she would also be there for them. Azula had always done her routines alone. Even when she had been teaching Zuko so long ago, they were always forms that could be done alone. "We've never exactly been a cohesive sibling unit—I don't see how that can change in one single afternoon."

"I guess you'll just have to trust that we can do it. And if we do end up off center—then we have a lot of time to practice," Zuko said. "Come on. Let's try."

Azula sighed, and took up the first position alongside Zuko. Then she moved to the next form in the sequence, and then the next. They washed through her, like water, and she closed her eyes as she listened for the soft pressure of Zuko's footsteps, for the gentle sound of his breathing.

And then the dance was finished, and she opened her eyes to see Zuko facing her. Their hands were raised, forming an arch between them, their fists nearly touching at the knuckles.

Zuko was looking at her from under the fringe of his hair, and he was grinning at her, as if he were delighted to be here with her, in this moment. "I told you so," he whispered softly.

And Azula, after only a few moments, smiled back.

 _THE END_

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Thank you to all who've read, favorited, followed, and commented on this story. Thank you also for your patience with my typos. Maybe next time I'll ask someone to beta for me. ;) Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the story, and thanks again!


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